Team Herald
PANJIM: The rush at Pollution Under Control (PUC) centres is expected to slow down in the coming days as several thousand certificates have been issued since the enforcement of the amended Motor Vehicle Act, on April 1.
On Tuesday alone, the State Transport Department recorded 6,182 PUC certificates, count which has remained almost the same every single day since the implementation day. On Sunday, the number had however dropped to 2,000-odd being a holiday. On an average, the PUC centres would issue 1,500 to 1,800 certificates per day until the government issued a notification to bring to force the Central Act.
“We are recording 6,000-odd count on a daily basis for the last 3-4 days. On the day we notified the implementation of the amended Central Act, the PUC centres issued around 4,000 certificates. We expect the rush to return to normal when the number will go down to 2,500-3,000 per day,” Transport Director Rajan Satardekar told Herald.
He also emphasised that long queues are not across all the PUC centres but only at prime locations. In an attempt to evenly share the work load, the department has decided to circulate the details of PUC centres along with its location, etc on the social media.
“With better reach through social media, the people will be aware about their nearest PUC centres and hence the burden on some of the prime places will be eased,” the director said.
The State has a total 74 PUC centres. About 8-9 new centres had opened few months before the implementation.
Satardekar said any individual wishing to open a PUC centre will be granted the permission subject to compliance of mandatory requirements.