Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will soon procure advanced pollution monitors to assess the level of pollution caused by diesel, petrol and also CNG vehicles.
The civic body has plans to hand over such advanced devices to the traffic department of Kolkata Police for strengthening the latter’ s efforts in curbing heavily polluting vehicles in the city.
If everything goes as per plan, the civic body has plans to hand over 25 such devices — one each to the traffic guards and another seven for the anti-pollution cell of the Kolkata Police.
According to sources, the Kolkata Police had proposed to the civic body for such modern devices which the latter has agreed.
“The present devices available with us can monitor pollution of BS-IV compliant vehicles. But now BS-VI types have started plying on city roads. We can use the existing devices for yellow taxis and older buses. However, such advanced devices will help us to monitor pollution of petrol and CNG vehicles too,” an official of Kolkata Police’s Traffic department said.
Debasish Kumar, Member Mayor-in-Council (Parks and Gardens) said that each of the machines is priced at Rs 1 crore and KMC has plans to hand them over to Kolkata Police.
According to environmentalists, there are vehicles that run in the city without fitness certificates or
with certificates that have expired.
“The police will be able to identify such vehicles and if they can impose heavy fines, then the tendency of taking to the roads by buses as well as commercial vehicles can be curbed,” a senior environmentalist with experience in vehicular pollution said.
A study by the state Transport department that involved profile mapping of 5 lakh vehicles in Kolkata and Howrah in 2019 has found that one in 28 vehicles plying on city roads is polluting.