In a bid to check auto-mobile pollution and ensure transparency, the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) has commenced issuing Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates online.
Rolled out on Sunday to coincide with‘Kerala Piravi Day’, the PUC certificates are issued online once the emission data of motor vehicles tested at any one of the 550-odd testing stations across the State is automatically fed into the MVD server.
The certificates would be issued from the approved testing centres that had upgraded the system and the entire testing centres would be covered in the coming weeks, Joint Transport Commissioner Rajeev Puthalath said.
For this, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has linked the emission-related data of 1.44 crore motor vehicles registered in the State with the VAHAN application for vehicle registration.
Increase in fee
Testing centres using old machines for detecting the emission level of the motor vehicles have to switch over to digital mode for the new initiative. The MVD had last year approved the demand of the testing centres to increase fees for emission testing of the vehicles. As more manpower is needed for the centres, fee for emission testing will have to be hiked again.
With this, the MVD will be able to monitor the emission testing being carried out by the testing centres, check the use of pirated software and curb the complaints of issuing certificates without carrying out testing as per the approved norms.
SMS alert
An SMS alert will reach the registered mobile number of the vehicle owner well before the expiry of the PUC so that it can be renewed from the centres.
As per the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, the information should be made available in electronic form in m-Parivahan and e-Challan platforms. The switchover is also based on the Supreme Court directive. The MoRTH had amended Rule 115 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 to enable linkage.
