Bhubaneswar, March 29: Police today conducted a drive against fancy car registration plates across the city and penalised more than 1,200 offenders.

A senior police official said the drive was against six types of deviations found on the number plates. These relate to the colour of the fonts and the plate, content, font size, dimension of the plate, reflective-ness and clarity.

According to the rules, every two-wheeler and three-wheeler must have a number plate of the size of 200X100mm. Light motor vehicles such as cars have to have 340X200mm and heavy vehicles 500X100mm number plates.

Many vehicle owners, especially the youths, are installing fancy number plates and even some of them are seen with names and phrases written on the plates.

'In most cases, the vehicle owners install such fancy number plates to draw attention. Some even install lights on the registration plates which is also an offence,' said the police official.

The police said the drive would continue and they were also planning to conduct such checking at educational institutes in the city.

The cops are also planning to distribute information leaflets to make commuters aware about how a proper vehicle registration plate should be like. (See chart)

The police said that in a number of burglary, snatching and robbery cases, the alphabets and numerals on the registration plates were purposely concealed and distorted to mislead the police. 'Besides, in the road accident cases, bystanders or pedestrians have often failed to read the fancy plates,' said the official.

'We have penalised 310 offenders till 7pm and the drive will continue till 10pm,' said assistant commissioner of police (traffic) Jatindra Kumar Panda. The minimum penalty for the offence is Rs 500 under the Urban Police Act. Also, the police stations concerned, that were part of the joint drive, have penalised 980 offenders.

In 2012, the police had launched a campaign against fancy number plates with the help of celebrities. The celebrities included actors Anubhav Mohanty, Archita Sahu, Sabyasachi Mishra, Akash Das Nayak, Pintu Nanda, comedian Pappu Pom Pom, athlete Anuradha Biswal, chess player Padmini Rout and football player Shradhanjali Samantray.

Residents are, however, of the view that the police should have conducted an awareness drive before slapping penalties on the offenders.