Telangana is TG, not TS, says Cabinet; new vehicle registrations to follow suit

Hyderabad: The Telangana Cabinet which met on Sunday decided to change the official name of the Telangana State from TS to TG. As a result, Telangana will now be represented by the characters TG instead of TS in vehicle registration numbers.

Youth, agitators prefer TG during Telangana agitation

This change will also be applied to new cars and all official communications. Accordingly, the authorities of the transport department are working on it. It all began during the Telangana agitation movement. Many young people and supporters have replaced the word AP on their vehicles with TG. After the bifurcation of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the Centre even allotted the letters TG to Telangana State.

KCR opted for TS instead of TG

However, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (then TRS) led by K Chandrashekhar Rao had opted for the code ‘TS’ as the state abbreviation, reportedly due to numerological reasons. In September 2022, Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy, then Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president, said that the Congress party would go back to the previous practice of abbreviating Telangana (TG) in all vehicle registration numbers if voted to power.

TS is simply TRS, says Revanth

Revanth noted that the word ‘state’ does not appear in the alphabet portion of the vehicle registration number in any other state, like Uttar Pradesh (UP), Karnataka (KA), Andhra Pradesh (AP), Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Tamil Nadu (TN). According to him, TS is simply TRS without the ‘R’ in between. Then, the Congress leader Koturi Manavata Roy also wrote TG on his vehicle instead of TS.

Mixed response for TG

The Congress Government’s decision to change the official name of the State from TS to TG evoked a mixed response from the people on social media. Sai Sankreeth, a techie on his X (formerly Twitter) wrote, “I am not sure why Congress Cabinet has taken this decision, TS sounds good and if the change is almost required, what’s the use of it? Any increase in state revenue. It’s just an illogical move. Also, what’s the motive for the change in the logo?”

“Why? What’s the need? Rather focus on all-India movement of vehicles. Road tax is a lifetime paid before delivery. Focus on making things easy for the public, removing agents, and corrupt officers. This is just an ego trip move,” said another X user on his handle. While Prashant Venella supported the Congress cabinet’s decision, “None of the states in India has this identity. We should retain TS,” he wrote on his X handle.

Union Government to formulate guidelines for gazette notification

Speaking to NewsMeter, a senior official on condition of anonymity said that the State Cabinet has decided to include TG in vehicle registration numbers.