Pollution surges, but govt has no data of PUC papers

New Delhi: Even as Delhi’s air is highly polluted and the air quality is dangerously close to ‘severe’ levels, the Delhi government’s transport department does not have any annual data related to the number of “pollution under control” (PUC) certificates issued by it, the Central Information Commission (CIC) said.

The commission has directed the department to “compile and publish” the annual data about the PUC certificates issued by it to motor vehicles after verifying that they meet the emission and pollution control norms.

This came to light after RTI applicant Deepak Juneja sought from the transport department  information about the number of PUC certificates issued for different classes of vehicles in Delhi and the number of petrol, CNG, and diesel pollution under control testing centres in January this year.

He had also asked for the total licence fee collected by the transport department in the last five financial years.

However, when he didn’t receive any satisfactory response from the department, he filed a complaint with the commission, which has now pulled up the officials for exhibiting “sheer indifference” towards their duty.  Information commissioner Yashovardhan Azad pointed out that in spite of specific queries with respect to the PUC certificates and after also marking the RTI query correctly to the branch, no effort was made to attend to the query in the manner envisioned by the RTI Act.

He said that as guaranteed by the Constitution, protection and improvement of public health is the duty of the state.

Mr Azad added that the transport department website itself declares that vehicular pollution is considered to be a major source of air pollution in Delhi.