NEW DELHI: Come October 25, vehicles without valid Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate will not be allowed to refuel at petrol pumps in the city, the Delhi government said on Saturday. “The transport department will issue a notice on this on Monday. Vehicle owners will be given time till October 25 and no one will be able to fill petrol and diesel at the pumps without a PUC certificate after that,” Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said.
The step will be in addition to the government’s ‘Winter Action Plan’, Rai said. “To deal with vehicular emissions, we usually take measures in the Winter Action Plan. In addition to this, people will not be able to fill fuel at the pumps without a valid PUC certificate when pollution levels increase,” Rai said at a press conference. The minister said the proposal for such a move was initiated on March 3 and was finalised after a joint meeting of the transport, environment departments and traffic police on September 29.
Navlendra Kumar Singh, joint commissioner, transport department, told this newspaper that the move was aimed to end the pendency of around 25% of vehicles, which do not have a valid PUC certificate. “Out of 80 lakh registered vehicles, 19 lakh have not a valid PUC so far,” he said. Singh said that the transport department would increase PUC centres so that vehicle owners can get their pollution checks done on time.
“We have 960 centres with a strength of providing 70,000 certificates a day. We may add 200-250 more so that everyone gets certificates before the order is enforced,” he said, adding that special teams would be deployed to keep a check on any violation. The transport department had in October last year issued a circular deploying the enforcement staff at the petrol pumps to check the PUC certificates of vehicles that come in for refuelling.