New ‘IN’ Vehicle Registration Will Make New Cars Cheap, Interstate Transfers Easy! (How Will It Work?)

A new registration series for vehicles has been proposed by The Ministry of Road Transport and highways (MoRTH). With the aim to ease the transfer of registrations of a vehicle from one state to another in case of a relocation, this new ‘IN’ series will be a pilot program.

There is a rule under Section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, which states that if an individual who has moved to a different state, must re-register one’s her car to the state that they one has moved to, provided it has been 12 months.

This new series shall be made available to the defence personnel, central and state government employees, central public sector undertakings (PSUs) and private sector companies with offices in five or more states or union territories.

Easy Interstate Transfers & Reduced Cost Of Cars

The current process of reregistering is a bit tedious as it entails getting a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the parent state to the new state and only after paying the road tax to the new state and one apply for the refund of road tax from the parent state.

Now under the new IN series, the process of paying road tax has been simplified wherein a vehicle for a period of only two years and then in multiples of two years moving forward.

Now, the catch is that when a car was registered under a traditional state-based registration, the road tax on the same was calculated for a period of 15 years. Now with the new IN series, the initial road tax shall only be for a period of two years, which in turn will make the car cost substantially less at the time of purchase.

Of the total invoice value:

• Tax on the petrol cars which cost under Rs 10 lakh is 8 percent
• Tax on the petrol cars which cost between Rs 10-20 lakh is 10 percent
• Tax on the petrol cars which cost above Rs 20 lakh is 12 percent

In addition to this, a 2 percent cut in tax under the IN registration will be given to all-electric cars while an additional 2 percent must be paid to the buyers of diesel cars. After the expiry of the road tax, be a late fee or penalty of Rs 100 per day be levied for the delays.

Format Of The New Vehicles

Similar to the format of the vehicles of armed forces, the new IN plate will have the year of registration as the first two digits unlike the standard ones wherein the state where the car is registered, makes up the first two letters.

The format will be as follows 

1. XX – Year of registration 
2. XX – India series code or IN 
3. XX – Two letters ranging from AA to ZZ 
4. XXXX – Four digit number from 0001 to 9999

Let’s see an example for more clarity. A car which is manufactured in 2021 will have a number as 21 IN AA 0001. This registration seems to be more of a centralised process, whereas the vehicle registrations are taken care off by the state. So what is to be seen is whether or not the new centralised transport office that will bypass the prevalent state transport organisations as well as what effect it would have on GST as far the central and state governments split is considered.