The Bay of Bengal may flush out Chennai's air pollutants, but activists say the city needs a sea change in its approach to curb emission from vehicles. Tamil Nadu is woefully lacking in mechanisms to control vehicular pollution. The state has just one emission testing centre for every 66,500 vehicles. In Chennai, there is only one for every 1.03 lakh vehicles, reports the latest data avail able with the State Transport Authority . "There are 289 such centres across the state and 42 in Chennai," said an STA official. Tamil Nadu has 1.92 crore vehicles including 42.5 lakh vehicles in the city.
While traffic police and regional transport office in cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune are consistent in checking `pollution under control' (PUC) certificate, Tamil Nadu shows extreme laxity in this regard. According to the Motor Vehicles Act, while a newly registered vehicle is exempted from obtaining a PUC for a year from the date of purchase, every other vehicle should have its PUC renewed every six months. "New emission testing vehicles were given five years ago. How can we ask for PUC when there are only few centres?" said a police officer from Anna Nagar.
The fine for not carrying a valid PUC certificate is `1,000 under the Motor Vehicles Act for the first offence and `2,000 for every successive offence.
According to research, emissions from vehicles are the biggest contributors to air pollution in any city. A study by IIT-Madras shows 14% of particulate matter and 68% of nitrous oxides come from vehicles Other studies show that 35% of particulate matter of size 2.5 microns -the most dangerous pollutant -comes from vehicles.
There seems to be little logic in RTO regulations Autorickshaw drivers say RTOs are strict about PUC but do not enforce the rules consistently . "The govern ment is not serious about air pollution. While it made it mandatory for autos to run on LPG in 2007, no effort was taken to set up LPG vending stations," said M S Rajendran, president of CITU-affiliated autorickshaw driver's union.
