Fine on mind, motorists throng pollution centres

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 17

Fluttered by heavy penalties provided for traffic violations under the Motor Vehicles (Amended) Act, 2019, residents are thronging pollution checking centres in the city to obtain the pollution under control (PUC) certificate lest they are penalised.

Sources said as many as 76,778 PUC certificates had been issued in the city since the implementation of the amended Act, which increased the penalty for not having a pollution clearance document from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000.

Of the total 76,778, 66,504 PUC certificates have been issued for petrol-run vehicles and the remaining 10,274 for diesel vehicles.

An employee of a pollution checking centre in the city said their workload had increased since September 1. They were working overtime but were still unable to cater to the demand.

Sudeep Singh, a city resident, said he had to wait for an hour for his turn to get his vehicle checked for the PUC certificate.

The UT Administration had implemented the amended Act on September 1.

Besides, the number of people applying for learner’s licence has also increased by 50 per cent over the last 15 days at the office of the Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA).

According to the RLA office, a total of 1,440 learner’s licences have been issued since September 1 this year. RLA sources said of the 1,440, the number of male applicants was 990.

In the last 15 days of August, 1,077 learner’s licences were issued.

Harman Sidhu, president of ArriveSafe, an NGO, said it was a good trend that more and more people were applying for learner’s licence as it would help reduce accidents.

The penalty for driving without a licence has been increased from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000 under the amended law.