Hyderabad Mayor Bonthu Rammohan at the Khairatabad Road Transport Authority office has got hold of a fancy number, all nines, TS 09 FD 9999, for a base price of Rs 50,000, a record low.
Almost same number, TS 09 FC 9999, with a different alphabet series last time had been auctioned for the high price of 9 lakh. It was Tollywood director Jagarlamudi Radha Krishna who won the bid for his Rs1.37 crore Porsche Cayenne.
Customers have to register online in order to get special number plates and if there is more than one person bidding for the same number then the number will be put up in an open auction and the highest bidder gets the number.
According to the rules, the lone person who had applied for a specific number would get it and this time the Regional Transport Officer (RTO) received only one application for the all-nine series, said Khairatabad RTO, P. Durga Prasad.
According to the report published in DC, there were others interested in getting this number, but they backed out after came to know that Mr Rammohan was in the race.
“It is the official GHMC vehicle for mayor, not a personal one. I didn’t even go to the office to get that number and influence the bidding. It just happened that our application turned out to be the solo one. We were not even aware that there were no other bidders. Even if there was, we had no issues,” said Mr Rammohan said when asked about the low price.