Ramkrishan Upadhyay Chandigarh, September 11 Owners of diesel vehicles are in a fix as a majority of the pollution centres are allegedly refusing to examine diesel vehicles for checking pollution levels citing various reasons. While some do not have extra machines for checking the pollution level of diesel vehicles, some others are checking only petrol vehicles. The shortage of facilities to check pollution of diesel vehicles is causing harassment to the owners. They say under the amended Motor Vehicles (MV) Act, the penalty for not having a pollution certificate has been enhanced from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000 and they have been facing difficulty in getting the certificate. Suresh Kumar, owner of a diesel car, said he visited three pollution centres in the city today for the renewal of the pollution certificate, but all of them refused to check his vehicle saying they were checking only petrol vehicles. The official figures of the State Transport Authority show that only 5,876 diesel vehicles were checked in the past 10 days since the implementation of the amended MV Act. Of the 45,285 vehicles checked in the past 10 days for pollution, the number of petrol vehicles was 39,409. There are 35 pollution check centres in the city. Sumit, another diesel vehicle owner, said the authorities should direct all pollution centres to start checking diesel vehicles. Amanpreet Singh, general secretary of the Petrol Dealers Association, said checking the pollution of diesel vehicles was a tedious task. The parameters were tough in the case of diesel vehicles. The issuance of the certificate had become totally online. Besides, not many petrol pumps had space for diesel vehicles such as trucks and buses. In such a situation, many centres had stopped carrying out pollution check of diesel vehicles, he said. Harjeet Singh Sandhu, in-charge of the State Transport Authority, said the department would look into the issue. Only 5,876 diesel vehicles checked in 10 days The official figures of the State Transport Authority show that only 5,876 diesel vehicles were checked in the past 10 days since the implementation of the amended MV Act. Of the 45,285 vehicles checked during this period for pollution, the number of petrol vehicles was 39,409.

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