760 belching vehicles identified

State-owned vehicles the biggest offenders
By Ifham Nizam

The Air Resource Management Centre of the Ministry of Environment has identified 760 vehicles as not being suitable to move on the roads due to their high emission of smoke.

Most of those vehicles belong to State institutions, particularly the State run bus service, police vehicles, and other government-owned vehicles.

The seven hundred odd vehicles were identified following the recently implemented 20 pilot spotter programmes.

AirMac, Environment Management Officer Sampath Aravinda Ranasinghe yesterday said that they had now developed the belching vehicle spotter progamme guidelines, which helps them immensely in their routine detection activities.

"We developed this guideline based on the experience and knowledge gained from the FK Training Programme at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Hong Kong, Environment Protection Department practices a similar method to identify smoky vehicles," he added.

Following AirMAC request, earlier this week the 760 vehicles were called for a spot emission testing at Werahera, by the Department of Motor Traffic.

Most of those diesel vehicles had a higher percentage of heavy black smoke, which causes respiratory diseases and other ailments like Asthma.

However, most of those vehicle owners, including CTB, Police and other vehicles belongings to State institutions received the letter from the Motor Traffic Department to maintain vehicles according to set guidelines.

He added:"If these vehicle owners fail to maintain the said standards, the Department of Motor Traffic would retain the revenue license and ask them to produce the vehicle after necessary repairs to reduce smoke level.

If the vehicle is not produced they will send prohibition notice," he added.

Plans are afoot to train more spotters on a volunteer basis countrywide and recruit a professional spotter – volunteer, he added.

Any complaints about belching vehicles can be conveyed to VET Programme office at DMT on telephone numbers 011-2669915, 011-3100152.

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=48045