Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, April 23:

The government measures to bring down vehicular emission have not been successful, though it has raised awareness on the hazards.

Over 70 per cent vehicles with green stickers fail when the Traffic Police in coordination with the Ministry of Environment and Department of Transport Management (DoTM) conduct checks. This raises doubts over the pollution checks conducted by the Traffic Police at Valley Traffic Police Office, Satdobato, in Lalitpur and DoTM at Ekantakuna.

“Surprise checks are conducted two days in a week,” said DSP of the VTPO Romendra Singh Deuja. Deuja, who heads the pollution sub-division at the VTPO, said the rules should be made stricter to reduce pollution. Deuja further said that the government should make smoke checking devices so that entrepreneurs can check emission-levels themselves. “The mentality to run vehicles until serious damage occurs has led to this condition which is gradually being reduced.” He added that police is ready to help the owners reduce pollution. Data shows almost all vehicles failing the emission test. The number of vehicles passing the check, however, is increasing gradually. This indicates that transport entrepreneurs are maintaining their vehicles.

The DoTM office at Ekantakuna shows that over 15 per cent of vehicles fail the test and most of them are the 1999 models. Mechanical engineer at DoTM, Damodar Shrestha, agreed that the owners manipulate the engines. Environment experts say there is no meaning of such stickers with so many loopholes.