Bhubaneswar: In a bid to curb malpractices in issuance of pollution under control certificates (PUCC), the Odisha government plans to make geofencing mandatory for all auto emission testing centres.
With this move, the Transport department seeks to ensure that vehicles undergo physical inspection before certificates are issued. Under the upcoming GPS-based system, owners will have to bring their vehicles to designated testing centres. Operators would then conduct inspections, capture live videos and photographs before processing applications.
There are complaints about vehicles securing PUCC without physically appearing at testing centres, and to tackle this, trial runs of an AI-enabled geofencing software — PUCC version 2.0 — are being conducted for its rapid implementation, Transport Commissioner Amitabh Thakur said.
Additional commissioner Dipti Ranjan Patra said all centres would be geo-fenced, enabling authorities to verify the actual presence of vehicles before issuing certificates. Geofencing creates a 200-metre virtual boundary around a location to track vehicle entries and exits
Stating that PUCC version 2.0 will be integrated with the Vahan portal, he said testing centres will be required to install an app that records the geographical coordinates of vehicles arriving for checks. The application will confirm the vehicle’s presence within the geo-fenced area. Only then can the software process the PUCC application, he said.
Currently, the auto emission testing centres only require a photo of a vehicle’s registration plate to generate certificates — a loophole that allowed operators to issue fake PUCCs at customers’ doorstep without seeking the physical presence of vehicles.
In order to tackle this, PUCC 2.0 will mandate a landscape image of the vehicle at the testing centre, a short live video of the emission test captured via the PUCC app and geo-location data from the mobile device used to capture the photo and video, Patra said.
Warning of strict action against violators, Transport Minister Bibhuti Bhusan Jena said licences of 42 centres have been cancelled after they were found issuing fake certificates.
At present, there are around 1,500 active auto emission testing centres equipped with over 1,800 machines in the state.
