KATHMANDU: The government’s ambitious vehicle digitization plan has fallen flat.
The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) began installing embossed number plates in 2016, setting a target to cover 2.5 million vehicles across the country by December 2023. However, as of April 2025, only 67,950 vehicles – just 2.71 percent of the target – have received embossed plates.
The DoTM signed an agreement with Tiger IT of Bangladesh in 2017 for the supply and installation of these high-security number plates.
According to DoTM, the majority of these plates have been installed on four-wheelers. A total of 44,368 four-wheelers have received embossed number plates so far. Likewise, 23,059 motorcycles and scooters, and 522 heavy vehicles, including buses and trucks, and one three-wheeler have been fitted with embossed number plates.
Among the total installations, 12,097 are government vehicles, 54,399 are privately owned, and 1,514 are in the public transportation category.
Only three of Nepal’s seven provinces — Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini — have initiated the rollout. Bagmati leads with 58,415 installations, followed by 7,801 in Gandaki and 1,734 in Lumbini. The other four provinces have yet to begin the process.
There are an estimated five million registered vehicles in the country.
What slowed the pace of installation?
The project has struggled because of multiple reasons. While the embossed number plates are legally mandatory for all newly registered, transferred, government, private, tourist and institutional vehicles, the rule has not been enforced effectively.
Delays in finalizing provincial names and language disputes in the initial phase slowed down the printing process. Although a 2020 Supreme Court ruling allowed the use of English characters on number plates, the project is not free with problems.
Vehicle owners have shown little interest in the system, partly due to a lack of awareness and concerns over high cost and quality. More importantly, the inability to process ownership transfers or pay taxes using the new plates has significantly reduced their appeal. Transport offices at the provincial level also failed to effectively enforce the rule.
DoTM Director Srikanta Yadav, who oversees vehicle testing and standards, said the department had instructed Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini to make embossed plates mandatory for new registrations and ownership transfers as early as 2021. However, the provincial transport offices failed to implement the directive.
“We only issue the policy; it is the provincial offices who were required to implement it. Despite multiple discussions, actual progress on the ground is minimal,” Yadav told MeroAuto.
He added that vehicle owners still do not fully understand the value of these digital plates, which can help curb theft, revenue leakage and criminal misuse.
RFID gate systems to read the embossed plates have already been installed in Nagdhunga and Nagarjun, with additional systems under construction in Pathlaiya of Bara and Farping of Kathmandu. Similar installations are planned for Jagati, Jorpati, Itahari, Butwal, Kohalpur and Attariya.
Bagmati Province’s Secretary for Labor, Employment, and Transport, Birendra Dev Bharati, rejected claims that the provincial governments are to be blamed. “The federal government’s system cannot read the number plates installed so far. It took us some time to develop our own software, which is now in its final testing phase,” Bharati said. “Once the software is operational within a month, the rollout will accelerate,” he added.
Govinda Raj Shivakoti, information officer at the Gurjudhara Transport Office, said the current system still requires old registration numbers for ownership transfers and tax payments. “This has discouraged the rate of adoption. Users have also raised concerns over the quality of embossed plates,” Shivakoti added. “We have written to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport to make embossed plates compulsory for all new vehicle registrations starting mid-July.”.
Shivakoti also said that unless all vehicle-related services are based on embossed numbers, public interest will remain low.
The DoTM can print up to 4,000 embossed plates per day, totaling over 100,000 per month. It has printed 592,809 plates so far. Of these, over 71,000 have been installed, 250,000 have been dispatched to provincial offices, and another 250,000 are currently in stock.
Two-wheelers are charged Rs 2,500 for the embossed plates, while three-wheelers are required to pay Rs 2,900, and small and medium four-wheelers, and heavy vehicles have to pay Rs 3,200 and Rs 3,600, respectively.
