New Delhi, Nov. 30: High-security electronic number plates that can help track a vehicle anywhere in the country will roll from January 1, 2005.

The Supreme Court today upheld a government decision to make electronic number plates mandatory.

The plates were to be introduced from October 1, 2001, but several manufacturers filed petitions challenging the tender conditions for bidding for the contract. The many appeals in high courts and then in the Supreme Court forced a postponement.

A bench of Justices Y.K. Sabharwal, D.M. Dharmadhikari and Tarun Chatterjee today dismissed all the petitions and held the decision to enforce stringent conditions for manufacturers as ?valid?.

The electronic number plates will be introduced as soon as the Centre issues the necessary notification. The court upheld the government proposal that all new vehicles getting registration from January 1, 2005, be fitted with the electronic plates.

For existing vehicles, a period of 24 months will be given for changing over from the manual black-and-white plates. Vehicle-owners will have to buy the plates, which are expected to cost between Rs 500 and Rs 750 each, from recognised dealers.

About ?four to five thousand crores? will be spent on the estimated 80 million vehicles in the country.

The regional transport office will issue the plates and will be able to detect any tampering with them.

Sheetal Singh, a leading manufacturer, said the plates would be ?tamper-proof? so that nobody can steal a vehicle and sell it in another state after changing the number plate. The numbers will be electronically embedded in the vehicle and it will not be possible to remove them.

The movement of every vehicle on the road having electronic plates can be monitored through electronic gadgets by the licence issuing authority. ?This is akin to mobile phone screens showing the name of an area?s coverage tower,? Singh said.

However, several manufacturers said the terms for manufacturing set down by the government were ?stringent?. Conditions like ?net worth of the company, experience in manufacturing high-security number plates as well as the turnover clause? would create a ?non-level playing field? for Indian companies in comparison with the several foreign firms in the race for the contract, they said.

Foreign firms would monopolise the market and control the price, the manufacturers said. But the government counsel said it would have ?superintendence and control? over manufacturers so that they could not form a ?cartel? and ?arbitrarily hike prices?.