Green Plates for EVs Are Now Legal — But Where Are the Perks?

The DMT confirmed that green-background number plates are legally valid for electric vehicles, after traffic police had been stopping EV owners who already had them — and it's still making headlines this month as more owners collect theirs. New EV registrations (cars, three-wheelers, bikes) now get green plates by default; owners who registered earlier can keep their white or yellow ones if they want. Officials say tens of thousands of plates have already been prepared and are waiting for pickup at the Narahenpita office. One camp says this is purely cosmetic: a different coloured plate changes nothing about your insurance, your revenue licence fee, or how you're treated at a checkpoint, so it's a solution looking for a problem. The other camp says you have to start somewhere — once EVs are visually identifiable, it becomes easier to justify dedicated parking, toll discounts or priority lanes down the line, the way hybrid stickers work in some other countries. If you've already picked up your green plate, has it changed anything in practice — at tollbooths, parking, or with traffic police? Or is this just paint? ඔබේ EV එකට green plate එක ගත්තාද? ප්‍රායෝගිකව මොකක්ද වෙනස?