Passion for wheels: Businessman shells Rs 8.1 lakh for VIP number plate for Honda Activa scooter

Kanwaljit Walia, is the talk of the town in Chandigarh. This man’s passion for wheels is known with the fact that the businessman spent a whopping Rs 8.1 lakh for a VIP number plate for his newly bought Honda Activa scooter which is worth Rs 50,000.

Walia made the highest bid for the VIP number ‘0001’, when numbers 0001 to 9999 of the new CH01BC series were auctioned by Chandigarh’s Licensing Authority in two phases.  Apart from spending Rs 8.1 lakh for CH01BC 0001, the businessman spent another Rs 2.6 lakh, to buy the number CH01BC 0011 for his son’s new Triumph Thunderbird LT motorcycle and the number CH01BC 0026 for his third SUV, a Mitsubishi Pajero.

According to reports, Walia is driven by his father’s passion for fancy number plates and states that his father was the founding president of the Chandigarh taxi union and had two VIP number plates.

According to reports, in the past, the number '0001' has been most sought after by individuals wherein it has sold for anywhere between Rs 70,000 to about Rs 10 lakh.

As the city is going crazy about the fancy numbers, from the open auction registering and Licensing Authority (RLA) had earned Rs 77.71 lakh in the last five months for VIP numbers.