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Journalism of Courage
March 28: In its ongoing drive against polluting vehicles in Mumbai, the city traffic police have suspended the registration of 202 vehicles and collected Rs 2.5 lakh in fines. The police have now asked for powers to fine offending vehicles on the spot.
“Pollution in Mumbai is on the increase, with over 70 per cent of pollution in the city being caused by automobiles,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) SPS Yadav told Express Newsline. “The increasing pollution levels have also increased the responsibility of the RTO and traffic police.”
There are over 8.5 lakh motor vehicles in the city and 200 new vehicles are registered in the four RTOs in and around Mumbai every day. Over 95 per cent of the lethal Carbon Monoxideemissions are from vehicle exhaust.
Last month, Yadav proposed that the government amend the motor vehicle rules giving the traffic police powers to impose spot fines of up to Rs 500 on polluting vehicles.Help has come from citizens in a big way, Yadav said. In the last six months, the traffic department has received letters and faxes from the general public, from painter Jaideep Mehrotra to the Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG), listing number plates of polluting vehicles. The special squad then sets off tracking down the address and registration of polluting vehicles through the Regional Transport Office (RTO) before serving notices upon them.
It takes up to a month for action to be taken against offending vehicles. The squad first serves notices to the owners, asking them to produce their vehicles for a pollution test after a week. If the vehicle fails this test, then the permit is suspended by the RTO at the recommendation of the traffic department under the motor vehicle rules.
But astraffic police say, polluters slip away quite easily thanks to the largely reformative nature of Rule 116 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989.
According to this section, the driver of a vehicle suspected to be polluting is directed to submit his vehicle for a PUC test to any authorised testing station and produce the certificate of authority within a week.
“Even though they deliberately use adulterated fuel we’re powerless to fine them, as we have to give them a seven-day time to return with the PUC certificate,” says Sub Inspector Mandar V Naik, who heads the special squad. Needless to say, after fine tuning their engines and using pure petrol, most of the vehicles manage to pass this test. So while the department has reported 700 defaulters to the RTO, it has suspended registrations of only 202 vehicles including 128 taxis and 45 trucks and tempos. Once the registration is suspended, the traffic department issues a list of number plates and imposes fines of Rs 100 on such vehicles on the roads.
