Pollution checks lack authenticity
Joyriding, emitting thick clouds of smoke, much to the discomfort of other commuters, is a common sight on Hyderabad roads. The rapid growth in the number of automobiles and the continuing rise in pollution levels is making living in the City worse. But the question here is, who should be blamed — the Road Transport Authority (RTA) which provides the PUC certificates to vehicle owners, or the Hyderabad Traffic Police (HTP) who keep a check on them?
The present situation of the PUC (pollution under control) vans and the so-called stringent traffic checks, reveals how easy it is to get a PUC certificate. Even if your certificate has expired, you really don’t need to worry about it. It is no wonder then that the City is getting more polluted.
Many road users blame the RTA, the authorised pollution checking vehicle staff, for not checking the vehicles emitting smoke properly. Many road users also blame the traffic police, who are not strict when it comes to checking the pollution certificate provided by the RTA. They give importance only to the documents related to license or registration.
“Most of the time, during regular checks, the traffic police concentrate only documents related to license or vehicle registration papers. They rarely check the pollution papers. My pollution certificate expired in the month of January and because of my busy schedule, I couldn’t renew it. But the traffic police too didn’t bother to check the papers. I renewed my certificate only in May,” said Nitin Kumar, a software developer. Rohit P, an IT professional says, “Many of my friends have got their PUC certificate without any proper checks. The pollution control vehicles are there just for name-sake. They don’t even have proper equipment. Many a times, one can avail a PUC by just paying some amount,” he said.
“These are all false claims, whenever a commuter is caught for jumping the signal or breaking traffic rules the traffic cops check the PUC certificates too. In regular checks also the cops make sure to check the PUC certificates and if the certificate has expired they are fined. May be in a hurry or to avoid traffic jams sometimes the police may ignore checking PUC certificates but not always,” said PVS Ramakrishna, DCP traffic.
As per the traffic rules if any visible smoke comes from the vehicle and they still have a valid PUC certificate with them, nobody can book a case.
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