Kolkata: The state Transport department is planning to introduce a new system in which a vehicle will not be issued with a Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate, if the owner fails to pay the road tax and obtain Certificate of Fitness (CF) within stipulated time. According to the present system, a commercial vehicle has to obtain a CF from the concerned Regional Transport Authority (RTA) complying with all the norms to be fit for plying. This apart, owner of a vehicle is slapped with a fine if he or she fails to pay the road tax within stipulated time. Sources claimed that as police generally check the PUC, Insurance and Driving License (DL), most vehicle owners bypass the CF and do not pay the road tax on time. To put an end to this malpractice, state Transport department officials have come up with the new idea. "Our aim is to stop the malpractice. We are planning to introduce a new system in which a vehicle will not be issued with a PUC certificate if the CF has expired and road tax has not been paid on time. But the system cannot be started before clearance from the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. As of now, a proposal will be sent to the Centre soon. If allowed, it will start from April 1," said a Transport department official. However, the department has already started issuing PUC certificates online. Earlier, vehicles were issued PUC certificates by authorised auto emission testing centres. Since last year, the system has been connected with the VAHAN database, following which a major change took place. Earlier, emission test of a vehicle could be manipulated by the testing agency against extra amount of money, if the vehicle failed to comply with general test. In such cases, the person used to retune the vehicle, following which it passed the test. As per the new system, the testing person needs to put the vehicle registration number in the VAHAN database, which is linked to the RTAs across the state. After submitting the number, the system will automatically fetch the details of the vehicle including the RTA it is registered with, emission norms and others. After the test is performed once, the data will be uploaded directly to VAHAN database to find out whether the vehicle is complying with the standards prescribed under the section 115(2) Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989. If the vehicle is emitting more pollutants than the prescribed standard, the test will automatically fail. In addition to the system, if the owner of a vehicle does not obtain PUC certificate before expiry of the current one, he or she will be slapped with a fine. Also, PUC certificate for such vehicles can not be used before paying the fine amount.

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