Vehicles bearing unauthorised number plates, name boards and stickers claiming "VIP status" beware. For, the Ranchi district administration has announced a crackdown against all such unauthorised sinages, asking owners to remove them immediately or face penalties if caught during checking.

District transport officer Praveen Kumar Prakash said on Saturday that joint teams of officials belonging to transport and traffic departments have decided to launch surprise checks regularly at strategic locations. Earlier this week, officials seized as many as 17 boards bearing names/designations of different political parties, government offices, etc, and imposed fines to the tune of Rs 26,500.

“The drive will get intensified in the next few days as the earlier drive was just to announce that people can’t get away with unauthorised boards on their vehicles anymore. Only those who are permitted by the state government (transport) department to put boards on their vehicles can do so. No one will else be allowed to boast of being VIPs when on the road,” he said.

Prakash said that as per a government notification, only the governor, chief minister, a high court judge and those holding constitutional posts are entitled to use boards on their vehicles.

The Jharkhand High Court has on many occasions rapped the state government for failing to curb the menace of unauthorised "VIP culture"on roads. Such is the situation in Ranchi that every other vehicle on the road bears boards/stickers mentioning either Press, police, army, names of political parties etc.

“While such practice had been in vogue before, it has suddenly seen an abrupt rise in recent months. One of reasons behind this is to dodge vehicle checking drives, especially during the lockdown. During our review meetings, we realised that such unchecked menace was also a reason behind the spurt in law and order issues. Hence, we have decided to act against such illegal boards now,” said a traffic DSP.