Two Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service electric buses were seen running the same Meghaninagar route on 19 September carrying the identical registration plate, GJ27TJ 3550. One carried a proper High Security Registration Plate; the other displayed a printed sticker. AMTS has fined the operating contractor, Aeroeagle Mobility, Rs 5 lakh, and Meghani Nagar police are questioning the drivers and conductors of both vehicles, Gujarat Samachar reported.
What AMTS says happened
AMTS chairman Parag Naik described the duplication as a contractor error: the firm printed and applied the wrong registration sticker to the second bus. He pointed to a routine gap in the process. After an RTO registers a new vehicle, the operator may run it on a temporary printed sticker for 10 to 15 days while the HSRP plate is manufactured and fitted. The contractor, on this account, copied the wrong number onto one of those stickers, Gujarat Samachar reported in a follow-up.
An RTO official told the paper that running a vehicle on a falsified or wrong registration sticker is an offence, and that an FIR can follow if the authorities ask for one. The Rs 5 lakh levy AMTS has imposed is a contractual penalty, separate from anything the RTO or the police may do.
Why a sticker error matters more than it sounds
A registration number is how every downstream system in city transport identifies a bus. Toll and challan records, insurance claims, the Vahan database, CCTV review after an accident, and the operator’s own fare and kilometre billing all key off that number. When two buses on one route share a number, an e-challan written against GJ27TJ 3550 lands on whichever vehicle the database happens to point at. An accident investigation inherits the same ambiguity.
The billing point is the sharper one. AMTS buys its electric buses through gross cost contracts, paying private operators a rate per kilometre operated rather than owning and running the fleet itself. Under that model the operator’s revenue is a function of verified kilometres, and verification runs through vehicle identity and GPS logs. City Congress spokesperson Atik Saiyed asked the question that follows: if the control room was receiving GPS pings from both buses, why did a duplicate number on the same route go unflagged?
That question is the one worth pressing. AMTS has put its e-bus contracting on a scale where the monitoring layer has to work. The service and Janmarg together ordered 561 electric buses over the past year and expect roughly 1,960 AC electric buses across the city by 2027, DeshGujarat reported in March. A control room that cannot spot two identical numbers on one route is not ready for a fleet of that size.
What this means for commuters
Nothing about the incident suggests either bus was unsafe or unregistered. Both had real RTO registrations; only the displayed number was wrong. For a passenger boarding at Damru Circle, the practical effect is narrow: if you need to file a complaint about a specific bus, the number painted on it may not identify the vehicle you rode.
The wider effect sits with AMTS. Ahmedabad is replacing a diesel fleet it owned with an electric fleet other companies own and operate. Every part of that shift depends on the corporation being able to audit what the contractor claims. The Rs 5 lakh penalty closes this case without telling anyone whether the corporation’s own checks would have caught it.
What to watch
Watch whether the RTO or Meghani Nagar police register an FIR, since that decides if this stays a contract dispute or becomes a documented offence against the operator. Watch whether AMTS orders an audit of registration stickers across its newly inducted e-buses rather than treating one route as the whole problem. And watch the standing committee, which will have to say what the contract allows AMTS to do if a similar lapse recurs.
Sources: Gujarat Samachar, Gujarat Samachar (follow-up), DeshGujarat
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.