The West Bengal government has introduced a system for the issuance of web-based centralised Pollution Under Control Certificates (PUCC) version 2.0 to check air pollution, an official said on Monday.

In the new version, all vehicles must be physically produced before automated emission testing centres (AETCs) for issuance of pollution certificates.

The state government has directed the transport directorate to instruct all AETCs to strictly follow the new norms, the official said.

According to a notification issued by Transport Secretary Saumitra Mohan on October 11, a large number of vehicle owners were obtaining PUCC for their respective vehicles without physically producing the vehicles at AETCs, thereby indicating irregularities involved in the issuance of pollution certificates.

Such practices compromise the government's efforts to control air pollution, it stated.

The PUCC version 2.0 will ensure the physical presence of a vehicle at an AETC at the time of issuing pollution certificates. Under the new rules, all AETCs must enter their latitude and longitude coordinates in the Vahan software.

Each centre must register its mobile number and install the application.

An image of the vehicle's registration number plate (as printed on the certificate) in landscape format covering the AETC and the vehicle in a single frame and one short live video covering the vehicle and the AETC must be captured through the registered mobile set via PUCC app with geo-location of the mobile device, the notification added.

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