A board mentioning number plate specifications in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 20: Motorists beware. You can use fancy number plates on your vehicles at your own risk.

Police are going to crack down on vehicle owners violating the prescribed norms for number plates in accordance with the Central Motor Vehicle Act, 1986. The city police will conduct an awareness drive in Bhubaneswar from tomorrow to notify people about these rules.

A senior police officer said from Monday morning, traffic policemen would distribute leaflets printed with rules and norms about how the number plates should be. They would also rope in film stars and sports personalities to step up the drive.

“We are going to rope Odia film stars and sportspersons in the campaign to educate people about how to properly use the number plates,” said the officer, adding that roping in film personalities would be more useful as people would listen to their favourite stars.

Sources said the drive would start on Monday morning at AG Square and continue for a month. In the first phase, the police would start the drive in Bhubaneswar and concentrate only on motorcycles and mopeds. “After the one-month campaign, we will start cracking down on those people who violate the number plate norms,” said the officer, adding that the violators would be fined Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 under Orissa Urban Police Act, 2006.

The leaflets will have the rules for an ideal registration plate for two wheelers.

It will also have the ideal size for rear and front number plates, along with the dimension of the letters and numerals of the registration number.

Police commissioner B.K. Sharma had earlier told The Telegraph that six types of number plate violations were found.

. “These deviations are on colour of the fonts and the plate, content, font size, dimension of the plate, reflectivity and clarity. More than 60 per cent of the vehicles in the city violate number plate norms on these grounds.” Sharma had said.

The police was previously caught between adequate power and a high court order to crackdown on the rampant use of faulty registration numbers.

The high court had ordered the police to crack its whip on vehicles using damaged and illegible number plates in mid 2010.

However, the police was not able to implement the order, as it was not enjoying powers under section 192 of Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, to deal with the offence.

Use of motor vehicle without a registration mark of prescribed specification is an offence under Section 192 of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988. First time offenders are punished with a fine, which may extend up to Rs 5,000. ‘

Second-time offenders will be punished with imprisonment up to one year and fine of Rs 10,000.

A senior police officer said the state government passed a notification recently, in which the police was given power to punish the violators, following which they decided to check two wheelers in the first step, as these motorcycle drivers usually violate the number plate norms.