By IANS,
Chandigarh : For Rs.26 lakh, many people could have bought a high-end luxury sedan. But a builder in Chandigarh paid that amount just to buy the registration number ‘CH-01-AP-0001’ for his new Mercedes car at the auction of car registration numbers here Thursday.
Builder Amarjit Singh coughed up Rs.26.05 lakh (Rs.2,605,000) for the VIP number for his Rs.1 crore-plus Mercedes S-class.
This is the highest ever amount made by the registration and licencing authority (RLA) in Chandigarh from any auction of registration numbers for motor vehicles. The reserve price for the series was only Rs.25,000.
The previous highest bid was of Rs.17 lakh for the number ‘CH-01-AN-0001’ which was taken by agriculturist-businessman Jagjit Singh Chahal in June this year for his Rs.85 lakh Toyota Land Cruiser.
“This (Rs.26 lakh) is the highest ever auction amount for any number,” an RLA official said here.
RLA officials said that another person, who had bought a Rolls Royce car, took the auction up to Rs.26 lakh but gave up after that.
“There were in all 99 numbers put up for auction today. The total amount collected in this auction is Rs.69,21,200. The number CH 01-AP-0001 fetched the highest amount, i.e. Rs.26,05,000 and the second highest number bid was CH 01-AP-0005 for Rs.450,000,” an RLA spokesman said here after the auction.
Chandigarh resident Narinder Singh Shergill had became the first in the region in May 2010 to break the Rs.1 million (Rs.10 lakh) mark to get the vehicle registration number of his choice – 0001.
Shergill’s adventure in picking up the expensive number cost him half the price of the Toyota Fortuner SUV that he bought for around Rs.20 lakh (Rs.2 million). He picked up the number in the ‘CH 01-AC’ series.