Just 30% pollution test centres meet criteria in Patna

PATNA: At a time when hefty fines are being collected from vehicle owners for not possessing pollution-under-control (PUC) certificate, many centres issuing these certificates have been found not meeting the required criteria.
In a survey of 96 pollution test centres in Patna, conducted by the state environment, forests and climate change department last year, just 30% could meet the required criteria.
Officials inspecting the vehicular pollution test centres found that only 18 of 96 centres had proper equipment to issue PUC certificates.
Environment, forests and climate change department principal secretary Dipak Kumar Singh said 35 centres failed to meet the set criteria during the inspection, which means they were not fit to issue PUC.
An official, who was part of the inspection team, said they could not locate five centres at the addresses given to the department. “We were not allowed to carry out inspection at two centres and instruments used for checking emission level of vehicles were found defunct in two other centres.”
Patna district transport officer (DTO) Ajay Thakur said in order to do away with such malpractices, all PUC centres have been told to switch to online mode. According to sources, the online mode at the PUC centres allows the centre to get details of vehicle registration from the server of the transport department.
“Altogether 57 centres have so far switched to online mode in Patna. The other centres are in the process to follow the suit,” he said.
Mukesh Kumar, who runs a PUC centre near Kankerbagh, said they feed the registration number of vehicles to transport department’s website to get details, including vehicle’s emission level. “There is no scope of providing fake certificate while issuing PUCs through online mode,” Mukesh said.
Meanwhile, the state transport department has issued fresh orders to all petrol pumps in the state to introduce pollution test facility. As per the transport department, there are around 500 pollution test centres in Bihar, including 98 in the state capital.