Close to 75 per cent of residents in Prayag Chikhali have taken special numbers.

In this Kolhapur village, a fancy vehicle number serves as a family signatureShivtej Shankar Yadav shows his bikes and a scooty — the number plate of each reads 0554. (Express photo by Pavan Khengre)

5 min readKolhapurNov 2, 2026 06:22 AM IST First published on: Nov 2, 2026 at 05:42 AM IST

Shivtej Shankar Yadav, his brother and father own eight vehicles, including six motorcycles, one scooter and one car. But what really catches the eye is not the number of vehicles but the number on each of them: 0554. “That’s our family number. We chose this because the initials of all three of us are SSY and 554 if written in a certain manner looks like SSY,” says Yadav (27), whose family runs a furniture workshop.

His neighbour across the road, Sajrao Salunke, owns a hair cutting salon. Three two-wheelers stand outside his home, each bearing the number 1314. “It adds up to 9, and 9 is our lucky number,” says Salunke.