Sec-21 resident buys CH01BA-0001 for Rs 6.5 lakh

The first day of an open auction of first 100 numbers for the registration series CH-01-BA saw the number 0001 fetching Rs 6.5 lakh. Jaspal Singh, a resident of Sector 21-C, Chandigarh, bought the number for his Toyota Fortuner. The number 0001 had a reserve price of Rs 25,000 and for the other numbers, the reserve price is Rs 15,000.

Singh, who runs a garment business and is also an agriculturist, faced tough competition from two other bidders.

After 0001, the second most expensive number was CH-01-BA-0009 that was bought by Sector 27-A resident, Rohit Singla. The businessman owns a number of petrol pumps in Punjab and considers nine to be his lucky number.

The third-highest amount was paid for CH-01-BA-0002, bought by Ajay Kumar for Rs 2.6 lakh.

Kumar, a resident of Manimajra, and a farmer, bought the number for his Audi Q5. The numbers 0005 and 0007 went for Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 2.25 lakh, respectively. There were a lot of bidders for 0007, which finally went to Amit Kapoor, a Mohali-based realtor, bought the number for his Audi A6. Raman Deep Kaur, a resident of Sector 40-D, bought the number 0013 for Rs 1.06 lakh.

The laggards

There were numbers like 0092 that fetched only Rs 11,000 to the department. The last auctioned number on the first day was 0100, which was bought by Ishan Sharma, a resident of Sector 48-C, Chandigarh for Rs 35,000.

The auction of the first 100 numbers earned the RLA Rs 50.36 lakh, compared to each of the previous three auctions. The AX series earned Rs 69 lakh, AY earned Rs 57 lakh and the AZ series earned Rs 53 lakh on the first day. The remaining numbers of ‘CH-01-BA’ series, from 0101 onwards, will go under the hammer on Sunday on the RLA premises.

CH-01-BA series

0001 Rs 6.5 lakh
0009 Rs 5 lakh
0002 Rs 2.6 lakh