Kathmandu, April 27: With the decision to put the name of the province in Devanagari and other numbers in English on the embossed number plates of the vehicles, the government has instructed the contractor to print the number plates accordingly.
Arjunjung Thapa, joint secretary of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, informed that it has been decided to write the name of the province in Nepali language and other matters remain the same. Bangladeshi company Tiger IT has been entrusted to supply the embossed number plates. An agreement was reached in 2073 BS to install embossed numbers on 2.5 million vehicles within five years.
Even though the government has finalized the language to be embossed, the contractor company has not yet printed all the number plates, saying that the technical matter needs to be settled. “They have to change their system to put Devanagari script on the number plate”, Er Thapa said, “They are preparing for that. We have instructed the concerned ‘party’ to prepare accordingly.”
He said that Nepali and English languages were used in the embossed numbers because Nepali vehicles run in Bangladesh, Bhutan and India under VVIN and their equipment should be able to understand Nepali number plates. Er Thapa said that embossed numbers are printed in English in some countries including India and China.
The cabinet meeting held on Chait 20, 2079 BS had decided to allow embossed number plates to be printed in Devanagari. The then Deputy Prime Minister and Physical Infrastructure Minister Narayankaji Shrestha said that under the instructions of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, the matter of printing embossed numbers in Devanagari was taken forward.
Nepali Language Save activists were protesting that the government made it mandatory to print embossed numbers in English. It was also debated that embossed numbers placed on vehicles should be kept in Nepali. Earlier, the embossed number was printed in English.
Department awaiting instruction
Even if the government is going to print embossed numbers in Devanagari script, the Transport Management Department has claimed that the work could not be carried out due to lack of clear instructions from the ministry. Ishwari Datta Paneru, information officer at the department, said that there is no preparation from the department in this regard and they are waiting for the instructions of the ministry.
The department is currently printing the embossed number plates according to the old system. So far, about three lakh embossed number plates have been printed, Paneru said.
