A parliamentary consultative committee has looked at letting vehicle owners put their own name, or a business name, on their number plates in place of the standard registration number — a proposal the Department of Motor Traffic told MPs six months ago it could launch within six months.

Daily Mirror reports an official statement from Parliament saying the committee “has focused on increasing government revenue and to cater to the desires of vehicle owners,” and that “a proposal to issue personalised number plates was looked into.” The statement adds that “consideration of the legal provisions and the security was stressed” at the meeting.

Hiru News gives the same account in Sinhala, and adds that officials emphasised a broad evaluation of the technical, legal and security implications before any implementation.

The two filings name the committee differently

Daily Mirror, quoting Parliament, calls it the Consultative Committee on Public Transport. Hiru describes a ministerial consultative committee meeting chaired by Transport, Highways and Urban Development Minister Bimal Rathnayake. Only Hiru names a chair. The accounts are not necessarily in conflict — the portfolio and the committee subject overlap — but no filing gives the meeting date beyond “recent.”

This is not a new proposal, and the clock is the story

On 23 April, Motor Traffic officials told Parliament’s Committee on Public Finance that a personalised-plate system was already in development, and that once the department’s outdated IT system was upgraded the project could be launched within six months. That window closes on 23 October — seven days from now, and the scheme has arrived back at a committee table at the “looked into” stage, with legal and security questions still described as matters to be considered rather than settled.

Neither of Friday’s filings mentions the April undertaking, the IT upgrade it depended on, or whether that upgrade has happened.

The April sitting also disclosed what already exists: a premium plate reservation scheme running since 2023, with specific numbers priced between Rs. 100,000 and Rs. 1 million, and 1,185 buyers at the Rs. 1 million tier. Neither Friday filing says whether personalised plates would replace, supplement or merge with that scheme, and neither names a price.

The figure buried at the bottom

Daily Mirror closes with a number no other filing leads on: a backlog of 958,651 in the issuing of number plates.

That answers a question this desk recorded as unreported on 10 September, when the Motor Traffic Department’s Commissioner General said the backlog would clear within six months. That briefing gave only partial figures — 62,000 plates printed since 10 March, a further 32,000 printed and held for vehicles registered in 2023 and 2024 — and no total for how many vehicles were waiting. The total, on Parliament’s own figure, is close to a million, roughly ten times the volume that briefing accounted for.

It also reconciles with the department’s other queue. This desk reported on 2 October that 678,000 driving licences were awaiting printing, a backlog then growing by 4,600 a day. Added to Friday’s plate figure, the two come to 1,636,651 — consistent with the “over 1.6 million” combined total for licence cards and plates circulating in Friday’s coverage. The two independently reported figures sum correctly, which is the main reason to trust either.

Not reported

No filing gives a price for a personalised plate, an implementation date, or the revenue the scheme is expected to raise. None says what the “security” concerns are — whether they concern enforcement, automated number plate recognition, or duplication. None explains how a name-bearing plate would work alongside the existing registration database, or what happens if two owners want the same name. And none says whether the near-million plate backlog must clear before a premium product is offered to new buyers.

Sources: Daily Mirror, Hiru News (Sinhala).