Pune RTO Earns Record Rs 59.36 Crore From Fancy Vehicle Number Auctions In 2024-25
Pune, 4th April 2025: The craze for fancy vehicle registration numbers has proven to be a lucrative revenue stream for the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO), which earned a staggering ₹59.36 crore through the sale of preferred registration numbers during the financial year 2024-25. This marks an increase of nearly ₹15 crore over the previous year.
Many vehicle buyers in Pune prioritize securing a ‘lucky’ or symbolic number—often based on birthdays, numerology, or personal preference—before even purchasing their vehicles. To cater to this demand, the RTO allows vehicle owners to book these numbers in advance by paying a premium. In cases where multiple individuals request the same number, the number is awarded to the highest bidder, and the RTO often resorts to an auction model to finalize allocations.
Data from the transport office shows that from 1st April 2024, to 30th March 2025, the RTO collected ₹59.36 crore, compared to ₹47.14 crore in 2023-24. The upward trend has been consistent, as 2023-24 also saw a significant increase from the ₹33 crore collected in 2022-23.
Among the most coveted numbers were ‘1’, ‘7’, ‘9’, ‘12’, ‘24’, ‘90’, ‘99’, ‘100’, ‘101’, and repeated patterns like ‘1212’, ‘2121’, ‘7070’, ‘9090’, and ‘9999’. The number ‘1’ remained the top choice, with one buyer reportedly paying ₹18 lakh for it in 2024-25—up from ₹12 lakh the previous year.
The RTO has also noted that in cases where a fancy number is unavailable for a particular category, buyers often opt to pay three times the usual fee to transfer the number from another vehicle class, further boosting revenue.
