Crackdown on vehicles without PUC

Surat: Next time you are caught driving without valid pollution under control (PUC) certificate, be prepared to cough up huge fines.
The Surat regional transport office (RTO) has set a target to impound 10,000 vehicles plying without PUC registration in the coming 10 days.

Official sources said that the state transport commissioner has issued orders for carrying out an aggressive drive against PUC certificate. In the last two days, the RTO has nabbed more than 250 vehicle owners plying without PUC certificate and fine amounting to over Rs 30,000.

The drive has been taken up considering the rising air pollution levels due to rampant increase in the number of vehicles plying on the city roads. The particulate matter in the air at many places is dangerously high due to industrial emission and noxious fumes from lakhs of vehicles over the last two years.

The annual PM10 data obtained from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in 2017-18 shows that the particle pollution recorded from 10 locations in the city is much higher than the national average.

For example, the mean of particulate matter at two locations at Pandesara, which houses the textile mills, is 174 and 184 respectively per micrograms per cubic meter of air (UG/M3) per annum as against the national average of 100 UG/M3. Interestingly, in 2015-16, the PM10 levels in the city was in the average of 90 ug/m3.

GPCB officials said that the presence of industrial units and a huge population of vehicles in the city is mainly responsible for the higher particle pollution.

Last year, the union ministry of road transport implemented the rule to directly upload emission details captured by the testing equipment on the central ‘vahan’ database of the vehicles, which can be accessed by enforcement agencies using handheld devices. While Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh has implemented the rule, other states including Gujarat will be covered after April 2019.

A senior transport officer said, “We have checked the authorized PUC centres issuing the certificate to the vehicle owners. The PUC agents are not regularly updating the data on the RTO website and thus we are unable to keep the record of the vehicles. We appeal the vehicle owners to get their PUC certificates done every six month to help in controlling the vehicle pollution in the city.”