The government’s effort to curb air-pollution has been put on the backburner—at least for now, as the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) put off its plan to ban vehicles failing emission test.
In a public notice, the department informed about its change of plan to ban the poorly maintained vehicles from the New Year’s day of Nepali calendar (April 14). It said the plan has been deferred to July 17 citing the delay in arriving necessary devices to conduct emission test.
According to DoTM officials, the contract of procuring the equipments has been awarded to a private company after a bidding process. “The vendor has assured to transport the equipments by first week of June,” said an official at the DoTM, adding that they need some time to install the equipments in major cities across the country before implementing the plan.
As part of its driver to control the growing emissions from the motor vehicles, the department ordered 40 sets of emission testing devices. Presently, the department has only two emission-testing devices: one at Ekantakuna based office of DOTM and another at Teku-based Vehicle Fitness Test Centre.
The department came up with the plan to check emission levels of vehicles after some tests in Kathmandu disclosed that the higher emission levels were excessively higher.
The government has been planning to phase out the old and poorly maintained vehicles in a bid to curb the environmental pollution.
Nepal ranks among the lowest in the word in terms of its air quality. According to global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released earlier this year by Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, Nepal ranks 176th among 180 countries surveyed for air quality.
