Vehicle licence plates in Delhi to be scanned at petrol pumps for PUCC validity

New Delhi: Soon, your vehicle licence plates will be scanned by cameras at the petrol pumps for PUCC validity with the Delhi government planning to implement a digital solution for the issue.

The Delhi Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation (DTIDC) has floated a tender and invited bidders to suggest digital solutions to check whether the vehicles coming to the petrol pumps have a valid Pollution Under Control Certificate (PUCC). The estimated cost of the project is Rs 6 crore.

"The bidder must possess the capability to deliver a digital solution aimed at mitigating pollution within the city of Delhi. This involves implementing an application that integrates with existing cameras situated at petrol pumps," said an official.

Explaining how the system will work, the official said it will be designed to scan the licence plates of the vehicles upon entry to a petrol pump.

He said the selected company will be required to integrate the digital solution with the echallan.parivahan.gov.in portal. If a vehicle is detected with an expired PUCC, the attendant at the petrol pump will apprise the vehicle owner to get the PUCC renewed. The vehicle owner will also get the information of the same through a screen installed by the bidder at the petrol pump.

"The system will again check PUCC status after three hours and in case of expiry of PUCC, the system will generate a challan at echallan.parivahan.gov.in," he explained.

According to the documents prepared by the DTIDC for the implementation of the project, the system will be able to verify the validity of PUCC by cross-referencing the details of the registration certificate of the vehicle from the database it will have access to.

In a case where the petrol pump does not have a camera, the selected firm shall bear the responsibility of installing a camera at their own expense. In case there is a requirement for the upgrade of the camera, it will also be the responsibility of the company, the official said.

"The bidder is mandated to ensure that the system records data on the number of vehicles checked, categorising them as compliant or non-compliant. This information will be displayed on a dashboard managed by the project-in-charge," he said.

The selected firm will have to ensure that the positioning of the CCTV cameras is satisfactory and there shall be a scope for future possibility of coverage or adding additional locations of the petrol pumps.

"The tender may be extended up to 500 petrol pumps, based on availability of funds. The digital solution shall be installed into the existing CCTV cameras already installed at 100 petrol pumps," he said.

The system shall generate reports on PUCC compliance rates, system usage and the number of PUCC renewed.

Before implementation of the project, the company shall conduct a comprehensive survey of the infrastructure of petrol pumps and then propose a suitable technological solution considering scalability, affordability and ease of integration.

Initially, the company will test the digital solution in a pilot phase involving the petrol pumps at all the locations as well as train the petrol pump attendants on the new system and procedures.

Last year, the transport department data showed that there were around 22 lakh vehicles in Delhi without a valid PUCC and out of them, 19 lakh were two-wheelers.