No PUC certificate for vehicles with pending challans: West Bengal tightens noose

The West Bengal Transport Ministry has been tightening the norms for vehicle owners to obtain the Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate over the last few weeks. To ensure no compromise on PUC certificate and enforce stricter emission laws, the state ministry has graduated to PUCC Version 2.0. In accordance with the features of the new certificate, the ministry earlier enforced geofencing across all emission testing centres in the state. This was done because vehicle owners were obtaining pUC certificates without visiting the testing centres. Through geofencing the process, a PUC certificate cannot be issued unless the vehicle is physically present at the centre.

Tightening the noose even more, Snehasis Chakraborty, Transport Minister, West Bengal recently announced that in order to get a PUC certificate, vehicle owners will now have to ensure that no outstanding challans or tax is pending on the vehicle. As per the new mandate, if a vehicle has outstanding challans or tax in the database, then the testing centre will not issue a PUC certificate for these vehicles. The ministry says that the rule has been brought in to ensure transparency in the PUC issuance process and to keep pollution under control. The new rule will be applicable from November 1, 2023.

How does geofencing work?
As per a notification shared by Saumitra Mohan, Transport Secretary, unlike before, where an emission testing centre only required the photograph of the vehicle’s registration plate, PUCC Version 2.0 will require a landscape image of the vehicle which will be authenticated by leveraging the geolocation of the mobile device, only after authentication a PUC certificate will be issued.