New Bharat Series BH mark introduced for vehicle registration: What it means

If you frequently shift base around the country and want to avoid the hassle of going through the process of transferring registration of your vehicle every time you do that, there is finally some good news. The Centre has introduced a new vehicle registration mark called the Bharat series or ‘BH’ in all vehicles.

The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has released the notification of Bharat Series vehicles on Friday.The new BH series vehicles will not require any transfer of registration and will be valid across the country. This facility will be available on voluntary basis to Defense personnel as well as Central and State Government employees.Employees of private companies having offices in four or more states can also take advantage of this facility.

The biggest benefit of this will be for people with transferable jobs, who keep moving from one state to another. This will help people shifting base to avoid the process of transferring registration certificate of their vehicles every time they move to a new state.

In the process of transfer of registration from the parent state to another state as, under section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, an owner is allowed to keep his vehicle for not more a year in any state other than the state where the vehicle is registered. The owner needs to get a new registration with the new state authority within the stipulated timeframe.

MORTH has introduced a new registration mark for new vehicles – Bharat series (BH-series). A vehicle with BH mark will not require a new registration mark when the owner shifts from one State to another.

— MORTHINDIA (@MORTHIndia) August 28, 2021

The format of BH registration has been kept as YY BH 4144 XX YYwhich denotes the year of first registration BH, then Bharat series code 4- 0000 to 9999 (randomized) XX- alphabets (AA to ZZ).

It has been told in the notification that under the BH series, motor vehicle tax will be levied for two years or 4, 6, 8 years. The scheme will facilitate free movement of private vehicles when they are shifted to the new state.Motor Vehicle Tax will be levied annually after the fourteenth year which will be half of the amount previously collected for that vehicle.