Don’t have PUC? Keep Rs 10,000 ready

Don’t have a valid Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate for your vehicle? Be prepared to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 next time you hit the road. Delhi Govt’s transport department has begun a special drive against polluting vehicles & most of the challans have been issued for not carrying PUC certificates.

A Transport Department official said that “We have deployed 40 teams across Delhi to check & penalise polluting vehicles & the focus is on the 13 pollution hotspots identified by Delhi Pollution Control Committee, including Anand Vihar, RK Puram, Jahangirpuri, Vivek Vihar, Mayapuri etc".

He added that “At these hotspots, joint teams of our enforcement wing personnel, DPCC officials & Delhi Traffic Police personnel are also collecting diesel & petrol samples from vehicles to check adulteration & impurities".

The amended Motor Vehicles Act, which came into effect from Sept 1, 2019 in Delhi, hiked the fine for not carrying a valid PUC certificate from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000. The ten-fold hike had resulted in a sudden rush at the nearly 1,000 PUC centres in Delhi & the transport department had issued as many as 14 lakh PUC certificates in that month itself. 

The Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has extended the validity of all transport documents like driving license, fitness, permits, registration etc. that have expired since Feb 1 to Sept 30, 2020. Delhi’s transport department officials, however, said that no such exemptions are being granted to vehicles with expired PUC certificates.

“Vehicle owners should not be under the impression that they would be spared for not having a valid PUC certificate. They should get their vehicles checked on time at any nearby PUC centre,” he said.

“Vehicles need to have valid PUC certificates or their owners should be prepared to pay a penalty,” he added.

The official said, “We are mainly targeting vehicles that are visibly polluting or don’t have valid PUC certificates, apart from other violations. Our personnel have handheld e-challans that are linked to servers & we can get all details of any vehicle on the spot,” he said, adding that more than 100 challans have been issued just for not carrying PUC certificates since Tuesday. “In July, we had penalised 610 vehicles for not carrying PUC certificates".

PUC centres in Delhi were reopened in May as part of Unlock-1, but they received negligible number of vehicles for inspection.

The number of vehicles checked at these centres in June was 5.2 lakh, out of which about 5 lakh vehicles passed the test. In July, only around 4 lakh vehicles got PUC checks & hence, the transport department is taking strict measures to ensure compliance. 

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