The city will soon have a state-of-the-art Inspection and Certification Centre for automated testing of transport and commercial vehicles for safety and emission compliance. This will be the first such facility in the city, and is expected to be operational in the next 12 months. The Union government has released ₹18.5 crores to the Puducherry government to set up the facility. The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) has sanctioned one such facility for each State.
The project will involve the creation of inspection lanes for testing of various categories of vehicles. The safety and emission compliance of vehicles will be conducted in three stages, wherein vehicles will be driven through a series of test equipment and the required inspections will be conducted.
The automation of the vehicle fitness testing centre will help streamline the periodic fitness testing of motor vehicles and is aimed at phasing out the manual tests.
“The first-of-its-kind facility will come up on 3.5 acres in Thengaithittu. The government will soon sign a pact with the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), a Central government body for developing the facility. The Puducherry government will be spending ₹1.35 crores for levelling the land for the facility,” said a senior Transport Department official.
The construction of administrative buildings, inspection lanes and other facilities for testing of vehicles will be taken up by ARAI. The government will import the equipment for the facility. ARAI will be responsible for the upkeep of the equipment for two years following which the Puducherry government will take a call on the company that will be given charge of the maintenance, the official added.
The new technology eliminates human intervention and will facilitate efficient and transparent testing of vehicles, as compared to the present manual testing of transport and commercial vehicles at the Regional Transport Office on 100-feet-Road.
The facility will have three inspection lanes with test equipment for testing vehicles one after the other. The inspection centre will be equipped to test 80 vehicles per day. During the testing of vehicles, the system can detect minor defects in a vehicle and certification will be withheld until the repair work is carried out.
The equipment-based test with automated equipment includes testing of brakes, gear box, headlight, side slip, suspension, steering and condition of the engine. After conducting tests, a computerised certificate will be issued. There will be no tampering and only vehicles in perfect condition will be given the fitness certificate, the official said.
