Everything You Wanted to Know About Bharat Series Vehicle Registration

Posted on: Oct 26, 2021 | | Written by:

Everything You Wanted to Know About Bharat Series Vehicle Registration

Published on October 26, 2021. EST READ TIME: 3 minutes

Vehicle registration in India has always been a state government charge. That is why you can tell from the registration number of the vehicle where it was registered. Now, while you have free right of movement in India, if you are moving from one state to another, you can run an out of state vehicle for only a year in the new state. If you are moving to a different state for longer than one year, you are legally required to change the registration of your vehicle to your new state. This means that you will need to pay the registration and road tax from the fresh in the new state and get your car insurance policies updated.

While this is alright for most people who may, in rare cases, change their residence from one state to another, it is a big problem for those with jobs that require them to move across states frequently. Such people include those serving in the central government, armed forces and central police forces, as well as employees of public sector firms with all India operations or those working in private firms with multi-state operations. Since these people tend to move from state to state on a regular basis, frequently re-registering the vehicle becomes a chore for them. In order to simplify things for frequent movers, the government of India has introduced the Bharat Series vehicle registration system. This system has started from September 2021.

What is the Bharat Series registration of vehicles?

The Bharat Series registration of vehicles is a common, all India registration and numbering system that provides a centralised system of vehicle registration and number allotment. If you have a vehicle carrying the Bharat Series number plate,you will be exempt from the need to change the registration of your vehicle when you relocate from one state to another and can carry your car insurance from state to state by just updating the address. As a result, you, the vehicle owner, can move from one state to another as many times you prefer, without having to run over to your previous RTO to get NOC and then get the vehicle registered in the new state.

Who is eligible for the Bharat Series vehicle registration?

The long-term plan is to make the Bharat Series vehicle registration available to everyone, but in the initial stages, the number plates will only be available to select groups of people. These include:

Officers of central and state governments
Personnel serving in the defence forces of the country
Personnel working for the Indian Railways
People who are serving in Public Sector Undertakings
Employees of select private sector firms that have offices in more than 4 states

This broadly covers many people whose job requires them to relocate across the country on a frequent basis and who would otherwise have wasted time and resources getting vehicle registration changed to a new state or run from pillar to post to get road tax refunds etc.

Also keep in mind that the registration of your vehicle in this series is completely optional. Even if you belong to one of the above-mentioned categories,you have full freedom to either register your vehicle in the new Bharat Series or get your vehicle registered under the traditional state-based vehicle registration system.

How is the Bharat Series registration number structured?

The Bharat Series numbers will be structured as YY BH ???? XX. In this series:

YY is the year of vehicle registration,which means 2021 vehicle registration will start with 21
BH is the Bharat Series code identifier
???? indicates the four numbers allotted to a vehicle,between 0001 and 9999
XX can be any two random letters from AA to ZZ, but letters I and O are excluded and will not be provided to avoid confusion with numbers one and zero

How can you get a Bharat Series number plate?

Since it’s a new age system, the process to get a Bharat series vehicle registration is online and can be done through a portal. The vehicle dealer can make the registration under Bharat Series for you by filling up Form 20. Registration is done on the Vahan portal. Dealers will need to select the vehicle type as Bharat Series. A working certificate/Form 60/official ID card along with other documents will need to be uploaded. The RTO will approve the application and levy the road tax for the first two years. This needs to be paid online.

Road Tax under Bharat Series vehicle registration system

Under the traditional vehicle registration system, the major chunk of your vehicle registration cost is the money you pay as road tax. This is also a major challenge because most people moving vehicle registration from one state to another need to pay fresh road tax in the new state, while the tax refund from the old state takes months, maybe even years at a time.

Under the Bharat Series of vehicle registration, road tax is levied for two years and then in multiples of two until 14 years. From then on, it is levied on an annual basis. The tax is levied at the rate of 8% of the cost of a vehicle for any vehicle priced under INR 10 lakh. In case the cost of a petrol vehicle being registered is more than INR 10 lakhs but up to INR 20 lakhs, the road tax is levied at 10 percent. For all vehicles priced more than that, the tax goes up to 12 percent. If you are registering a diesel vehicle, two percent will be added to the applicable slot tax rates. If you are registering an electric vehicle, the applicable tax will be reduced by 2 percent.

All in all, the Bharat Series vehicle registration system is going to help everyone by simplifying the vehicle movement process across states and make life much easier.

Disclaimer: The above information is for illustrative purposes only. For more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before concluding the sales.

Fancy a stylish number plate? Be ready to pay heavy fines

E-Challan System is Improving Traffic Law Enforcement in India

RTO Rules for Car Scrapping and Deregistration

A guide to obtaining a temporary vehicle registration number

What's in a number? Let your car registration number do the talking