Maintain data on PUC certificates: CIC to govt

NEW DELHI: Pollution may be at critically high levels in the city but 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 has lamented.

Pulling up the officials for exhibiting "sheer indifference" towards their duty, the CIC has now directed the department "to compile and publish" annual data about PUC certificates issued by it to motor vehicles after verifying that they meet emission and pollution control norms.

On January 18 this year, an RTI applicant Deepak Juneja had sought from the transport department information about the number of PUC certificates issued for the different class of vehicles in Delhi and the number of petrol/cng and Diesel PUC testing centres.

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

Not getting any satisfactory response, he filed a complaint with the Commission.

Information Commissioner Yashovardhan Azad pointed out that in spite of specific queries with respect to the PUC certificates and 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.