New number plates to include seven safety features: Bimal

By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera

Colombo, Oct. 8 (Daily Mirror) - The new vehicle number plates will include seven safety features and six features have already been accredited by the Moratuwa University, Transport Minister Bimal Ratnayake said today.

He told Parliament that the Moratuwa University has informed that they have no capacity to accredit the seventh feature and that assistance of an international lab needs to be sought for its accreditation.

The Minister said the matter with regard to issuing number plates have reached the final stage of the procurement process and added that three companies have submitted tenders.

He said a single company has issued number plates for the last 25 years from 2000 and that the government had called for fresh tenders in 2025.

The Minister said the process of issuing number plates is getting delayed as the process of accrediting safety features took a long time and the complexity created due to the matter being handled by a single company for a long time had delayed the process.

He said number plates have not been issued to 165,512 vehicles by September 30, 2025 due to the unavailability of number plates.