1 in 4 Delhi govt vehicles missing valid PUC: Transport dept tells NGT

Nearly 40% of Delhi's 31,000 registered non-electric government vehicles lack valid Pollution Under Control certificates, raising environmental concerns.

Nearly 40% of around 31,000 registered government vehicles (non-electric) in Delhi did not have a valid Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate as of June 19, 2025, the Delhi’s transport department has informed the National Green Tribunal (NGT)

The report says 1,360 vehicles were caught by ANPR cameras with expired PUCs. (HT Archive)

The data, submitted to the tribunal on September 22, revealed that 14,569 government vehicles had valid PUC certificates, while the department did not have information on the status of 4,027 other such vehicles.

The submission came while the NGT was hearing a plea filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Rohtas Nagar, Jitendra Mahajan, who had last December alleged that several government vehicles, including the one provided to him, did not have a valid PUC certificate. In his petition, Mahajan had claimed that “several overage vehicles”were still being used, and that several agencies responsible for implementing the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) in Delhi were themselves violating it.

Mahajan’s plea had also listed over 100 Delhi government vehicles that had exceeded their prescribed lifespan but continued to be used.

Transport department officials told the tribunal that they had no record of which government departments were operating vehicles without valid PUC certificates or those that had reached the end of their life. They said that letters had been issued to all departments asking them to get the certificates renewed.

“We have written to all departments and asked them to get the PUC renewed as some of them also have fines issued against them. If these are caught by any of the cameras, then a fine is automatically generated for the vehicle, which is a large amount for the departments,” said a transport department official, requesting anonymity.

To be sure, the official added that the penalty for an expired PUC certificate is ₹10,000, while the annual renewal costs ₹110 for four-wheelers and ₹80 for two-wheelers. Delhi has over 950 PUC centres, most located at fuel stations.

According to the department, it has conducted around 2,050 inspections over the past two years, issued 274 advisories, 76 show-cause notices, and suspended 17 PUC centres for not complying with norms.

In its response to the NGT dated September 22 but shared on October 8, the department said that 1,360 government vehicles with expired PUCs had been identified through Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras installed at fuelling stations across the city as part of an order by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM). The report, however, does not specify what action was taken against these vehicles.

Responding to Mahajan’s specific list of vehicles, the department stated that it had verified and found 102 of them were indeed government vehicles, while four belonged to private owners. Of these, 30 vehicles had valid PUCs, 60 were without valid PUCs and were fined, six had been condemned (scrapped), two were under the scrapping process, three were non-plying, and five were identified as end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) for which notices had been issued to their owners.