Members of the Motor Vehicle Emission Testing Centres’ Association have appealed to the State Transport Authority to extend time by three months to make the shift to ‘Vahan,’ a national e-register of vehicles.
The State Transport Commissioner had directed testing centres across Tamil Nadu to begin uploading data on pollution emission of transport and non-transport vehicles on the portal, starting April 1. Until now, individual States had their own logs of registered vehicles.
R. Ramakrishnan, president of Motor Vehicle Emission Testing Centres’ Association, presents a number of reasons for the 250-odd centres across Tamil Nadu not moving to the portal. There are 13 centres in Madurai. He says that the association is willing to comply and present data on the e-register but they do not possess the required technology to make the switch.
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To protest against the immediate order to transfer to the Vahan portal, 13 centres in Madurai, who are members of the association, refused to issue fitness certificates to vehicles on April 1 and 2.
“Our centres use 10-year-old vehicle emission testing machines to check carbon levels. They should be periodically upgraded but it has not happened because of high cost. Similarly, we have old computers and poor Internet connectivity. To upgrade the existing services, it would cost each centre at least ₹3 lakh and three months time to adapt to new technology,” he says.
These private emission testing centres have a five-year licence to test pollution levels in vehicles. Since they are private firms, they do not receive any assistance from the government with respect to technological upgradation. They charge ₹30 for two-wheelers, ₹50 for four-wheelers and ₹100 for heavy and commercial vehicles for issuing emission certificates.
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The emission certificate is necessary to renew the fitness certificate of the vehicle and its insurance. Mr. Ramakrishnan says that insurance companies do not insist on FC for yearly insurance renewal.
He adds that there is a need to raise the fee collected for testing. “The fee has remained the same since checking of pollution emission was introduced in 1998. How will we make ends meet unless the fee is hiked,” he asks.
A senior official of the State Transport department says that they will take up the plea for extension at a meeting to be held in Chennai on Thursday. He adds that other issues, including price rise, will be discussed then.