Pollution testing: Motor Vehicle Department introduces app to curb malpractices

Kozhikode: In order to put an end to the practice of issuance of fake Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates for vehicles, the motor vehicle department has come up with an innovative application called ‘Pollution Testing with Geo Tagging’.  

With the latest application, the testing operator will have to conduct the pollution test by clicking the photograph of the vehicle within 50 metres radius of the registered pollution testing centre.

What is required here is a photograph of the number plate and an image of the entire vehicle from a distance. The photographs shall be then uploaded to the application. The testing procedures shall commence after this. Going ahead, the motor vehicle department will receive the required information via the application. 

As of now, these applications can be installed in as many as three mobile phones from a single testing centre. 

For this, the centre owners shall submit those phones to the RTOs in their respective districts. The officials will install the pollution testing applications on such phones. 

The motor vehicle department was forced to introduce such a practice since several individuals had started obtaining fake PUC certificates without even taking their vehicles to the testing centres, only by merely sending the photographs of their vehicles to the owners of the testing centres. The latest move aims at thwarting such attempts.

As per the directions of the Transport Commissioner, the application has been introduced to operators of several authorised testing centres. The department on other day had initiated action against a testing centre for issuing fake PUC certificates.

In a new provision, testing operators will now visit the houses of individuals with multiple vehicles to perform the tests. They will arrive with their laptops and will conduct the pollution tests then and there and will issue the certificate immediately. In this way, owners of multiple vehicles no longer need to shell out lump sum money by fueling their vehicles every time they take them to the testing centre.

Associations of testing centres have also raised their voices against the issuance of fake certificates. The members have welcomed the introduction of the new applications.

The application with a geo-mapping facility has been developed by the National Informatics Centre. The application will be introduced across the state.

The usage of the application in the respective states will be based on its availability.