NEW DELHI: Protesting against the Delhi government’s recent proposed hike in pollution certificate rates, petrol pump owners have decided to keep the PUC centres shut from Monday onwards.
Issuing a statement in this regard on Sunday, the petrol pump owners termed the operation of the pollution under control (PUC) centres “unviable”.
On Thursday, the Delhi government increased PUC certificate charges as the rates have been the same since 2011.
In a statement by the Delhi Petrol Dealers’ Association (DPDA), “Since the operation of PUC centres is unviable, many PUC centres have surrendered their licenses in the last few months. The managing committee of the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association has thus resolved to close PUC centres at their retail outlets across Delhi from July 15 in light of an arbitrary and grossly insufficient hike in PUC certification rates, which will not in any way mitigate the losses of the dealers in operating the PUC centres.”
The association said PUC rates were last revised in 2011 after a gap of six years and the percentage increase then was more than 70%.
“The rate hike announced by the Delhi government now after 13 years is merely 35% whereas all our expenses in the operation of a PUC centre have increased multiple times with just the wages having increased three times from 2011 to 2024,” the statement read.
Oil marketing companies have also been charging heavy rents from the PUC centres — 10-15% of the total revenue — which was not the case earlier, it said, adding, “Various other operational costs of the PUC centres have drastically increased over last 13 years.”