Meet the industrialist who paid Rs 8.5 lakh for a fancy 0001 number plate

An industrialist paid Rs 8.5 lakh for the 0001 number of newly launched CH-01-AZ series at the public auction at the Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA) office in New Delhi officials said today.

It was the highest amount bid for the top number since CH-01-AT 0001 fetched Rs 9.1 lakh in May 2013, officials said.

L D Mittal, the owner of International Tractors, bagged the AZ 0001 number for his firm’s new Mercedes S series car at an auction yesterday.

Son of a grain merchant from Punjab, he worked in Life Insurance Corporation before joining his family’s agricultural and farm equipment business in 1990. In 2012 he even made it to the Forbes’ latest annual ranking of 100 wealthiest Indians and was ranked 75 on the list of the 100 richest people in India with a net worth of $785 million. Today, he is India’s 73rd richest person with a net worth of $ 875 million.

Sonalika products are sold in more than 60 countries. Japan’s Yanmar and private equity firm Blackstone are among the investors in its flagship company International Tractor.

Mittal is the chairman of Sonalika Group, which is among the top three tractor manufacturers in India. The group also manufactures multi-utility vehicles, farm machinery attachments, diesel gensets, and auto components.

According to a story in Forbes, in 2012, Blackstone Capital Partners invested Rs 520 crore in the relatively unknown International Tractors Ltd (ITL), valuing the makers of the Sonalika brand of tractors at Rs 4,200 crore.

The second highest winning bid of the day was for CH-01-AZ-0007 at Rs 3.35 Lakh by a resident of Khuda Ali Sher village near Delhi, Kulwinder Singh.

With inputs from PTI