KOLKATA: Strict emission standard but lenient enforcement is what marks the city's approach to pollution control. More than 75% of vehicles you see at any given time have ducked the mandatory pollution control test. "If vehicles are not maintained and tuned, they are bound to pollute, however higher emission standard they comply," said Sudipta Bhattacharya, head of SAFE.
The state government has banned commercial vehicles older than 15 years from the Kolkata metropolitan area. Autos have switched to LPG. And after April 2010, only Bharat Stage-IV vehicles are registered in the city. Yet, there is no noticeable improvement in the air quality. The pollution parameters still remains are 20% to 50% higher than safe limits at many parts of the city.
"Apart from dust generated from construction activity, vehicular pollution contributes the maximum to air pollution. If air quality progressively declines, it means vehicles are not adhering to emission norms. It is evident that a large section of vehicles plying in the city have either not been tested or have fudged test results," said Subhas Datta.
The reason is that only 24% vehicles are actually turning up for the pollution-under-control (PUC) certificate. There has been hardly any enforcement since the initial days of the ban on 15-year-old commercial vehicles in 2008-09. What makes it worse is that many of the auto emission testing centres (AETC) have not been properly calibrated. So a clean chit from them may not necessarily mean a green chit. "With no enforcement in vogue, the urgency for getting a PUC certificate has somehow been lost," said an emission tester.
Unlike Mumbai and Delhi, where renewal of PUC is a quarterly affair, in Kolkata it is bi-annual. Moreover, out of 59 AETCs in the state, 47 are in Kolkata, North-24 Parganas has six, Howrah has four and Hooghly and Nadia has one each. South 24-Parganas has none.
According to the Auto Emission Testers' Association in Bengal, only 24% of the city's vehicular population turn up for the half-yearly check. "A majority of vehicles go unchecked and continue to pollute the city, putting a big question mark on the relevance of the stringent emission standards," said association general secretary A Palchowdhury.
"The government seems to have forgotten the basics. If people do not follow a law, it does make any difference if you have stringent or lax rules. The government has failed miserably in enforcement of pollution rules," said a tester.
It is the responsibility of the transport department to enforce the law. The penalty for the first offence of not having a PUC clearance is Rs 1,800. The second time, the registration of the vehicle can be suspended for 15 days and if the owner fails a third time, the registration may be cancelled for life. But there is no system yet to check for repeat offences. So, even the few that are caught get off with a Rs 1,800 fine.
"We do not have enough inspectors for raids. The pollution control board is supposed to check if the AETCs are functioning properly," an official of the public vehicles department said. Experts say that introduction of smart cards would lead to better monitoring. The moment a vehicle undergoes an emission test, the smart card would record it, which would show up in the PVD database. It will be easier to identify errant vehicles and repeat offenders.
