Pune will leave the MH-12 series when the next registration plate turns over

Pune's regional transport office is preparing to move new vehicles off the MH-12 code once the current series runs out. Officials have identified MH-61 as the next mark for Pune city and the parts of the district that sit under the same RTO. The office already lists more than 44.88 lakh live registered vehicles.

Maharashtra assigns a two-digit code to each RTO. When a code's alphanumeric combinations are used up, the state issues a fresh one rather than reuse old plates. Mumbai has already lived through several of these jumps. Pune has stayed on MH-12 for years. The new code does not create a new office and does not split the district. It only changes the prefix that will be stamped on fresh registrations.

Owners of existing MH-12 vehicles keep their plates. Insurance, pollution certificates and hypothecation records stay tied to the old number. Dealers will start printing MH-61 on invoices when the switch is notified. The practical effect at the counter is a new stamp and a short period of confusion for police databases and parking apps that still expect MH-12 on every Pune car.

The 44.88 lakh figure is the reason the change is coming. Pune's vehicle stock has grown with the city's housing belt, the IT campuses to the west and the industrial stretch toward Chakan and Talegaon. A single RTO code was never designed for that load. MH-61 is the state's way of extending the same office rather than drawing a new boundary.

No date has been printed for the first MH-61 plate. The only confirmed items are the successor code, the live fleet count and the fact that the current series is near its end. When the first MH-61 certificate is signed, Pune will have two living prefixes on the road at once. That is normal in Indian cities. It is still a change that traffic police, insurers and number-plate shops have to absorb on the same morning.