Further breather for vehicle polluters

The much-postponed compulsory emission testing regimen for vehicles scheduled to begin from April is now likely to be put off again till either July or August -- with both the Department of Motor Traffic and the two companies contracted to launch the programme blaming each other for the delays.

The two companies said that the Department was initially dragging its feet in preparing the relevant agreement for signature and the undue delay in issuing the relevant gazette to make the entire exercise legal had been attended to now. The gazette has been issued on January 25, while the relevant agreements had been signed last July.

Motor Traffic Commissioner B. Wijayaratne said it was nonsense to blame his Department as under the terms of the contract it calls for the implementation within eight months of signing the agreement, but the companies were still constructing the buildings for testing centres or yet to find a proper site to build them.

The two companies, CleanCo Lanka Ltd and Laugf EcoSri Pvt. Ltd, however said they were badly handicapped as even banks did not come forward with funding without the relevant documents from the department. Now there are also allegations that since the two companies were importing two different types of equipment from the United States and Italy.

The American equipment manufactured by the Environmental System Products Inc., the largest manufacturer in the world of such equipment, is very much tamper proof, unlike the Italian equipment to be imported by Laugfs EcoSri. For example it is said that one can get even a highly polluting vehicle passed by the Italian machine by not properly coupling the tail pipe of the vehicle to the machine, where as the American machine would automatically get itself locked if a vehicle tail pipe is not properly hooked to it.

The Motor Traffic Commissioner, however, insisted that both machines had been approved by the Department of Standards and Measurements. But critics charged that the Department only checks the calibrations to ensure identical measuring standards. K.A Gunasoma, Director of the Department’s Measurement Division, however said that no machine was tamper proof.

Recalling a past example, he said in the sixties the CTB imported a ticket issuing machine from West Germany for buses, considered at the time as being tamper proof, but before long the bus conductors learnt how to adjust it and they ended up making more money than the CTB.

To check the problem, Mr. Gunasoma said they were going to seal all machines and if any machine was found to be tampered with they were empowered to prosecute those responsible. There is a cadre of 80 inspectors in the Department to carry out spot inspections and these inspectors are backed by a support staff of another 80.

Commissioner Wijayaratnas said he was hopeful that with competition between the two companies any shortcomings would automatically get exposed and corrected. Ruwan Weerasekera, Environment Management Officer of the Environment Ministry, said any possible malpractice -- like a vehicle which fails a test in one machine and then tries to get it passed from another place -- would get detected as all testing centres would be on-line linked to the Central Environment Authority, the Motor Traffic Department and the Divisional Secretariats, which renew revenue licences of vehicles after passing such tests.

In addition an independent compliance team too would be operational under the Motor Traffic Commissioner. Project Director of CleanCo Anura Vidanagamage assured that their Rs 500 million investment would now be ready for launch on July 1 with 16 main testing locations and 40 mobile centres. The mobile centres are primarily to cover distant locations. The centres at Negombo and Kurunegala are already nearly complete. By end of May all pre fabricated centres would be completed and by June 1 200 recruits would begin their one month orientation programme.

Chief Operations Officer of Laugfs EcoSri Wasantha Pamunuwa said they hoped to have 26 permanent centres and 20 mobile units in their operation.