New Delhi: You will be unlucky to be caught on camera without a valid pollution under control certificate (PUCC) at one of Delhi’s petrol pumps. And if it does catch you, you may need a bigger stroke of misfortune to actually be denied fuel. This, in a nutshell, is largely the picture nearly a week into Delhi govt’s intensified ‘no PUCC, no fuel’ drive.Govt has put technology at the centre of enforcement across around 500 petrol pumps, with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, scanners and public announcement systems ready to flag vehicles without valid certificates.Typically, when a scanner detects such a vehicle, an announcement is made through the outlet’s speaker system, alerting staff to stop fuel from being dispensed to it.But at several pumps TOI visited Monday, the system appeared only as strong as its weakest link. A camera had to read the number plate. The scanner had to flag it. The speaker had to work. And someone had to hear the alert and act on it.On top of that, there was no visible deployment of enforcement personnel at most of these pumps.At an outlet near the zoo, the speaker system has been defunct for over two months. The centralised team of transport department is aware of the problem, and the outlet is awaiting repairs, the staff said, adding the speaker was damaged during monsoon.The irony was hard to miss. Motorists were turning up at the pump to get their PUCC renewed, while the very system meant to flag those without one was unable to make an announcement. One of the motorists, whose certificate had expired around May, said he tanked up from the outlet several times but never heard his number plate being called out.At another pump near CGO Complex, the camera needed a vehicle to be positioned at the right angle so that its number plate could be captured. Moreover, the outlet did not have a PUC testing centre. That meant a motorist denied fuel for an invalid certificate couldn’t fix the problem at the same pump and tank up.The restriction may be clear, but the path to compliance is not always straightforward.Some staffers across the outlets seemed unclear about the strict rule. One of them told TOI that he had assumed motorists would get one chance before being denied fuel.Then comes the question of who is monitoring the cameras. Pump staff said they were primarily busy dispensing fuel and couldn’t keep a constant watch on CCTV feeds. At some outlets, the only practical way to know whether the system had flagged a vehicle was to ask each other, “Did you hear any announcement now?”Employees at a pump on Mathura Road said the announcement system frequently malfunctioned, and they were planning to have it checked.Nevertheless, govt has sought “mission mode” enforcement of the drive that began on Oct 1 as part of Delhi’s year-round effort to curb vehicular pollution.There were instances where the system worked. At a petrol pump on Sri Aurobindo Marg, TOI witnessed a scooter being denied fuel at 2 pm after it was flagged for not having a valid PUCC.But such instances also underline a larger problem. A rule designed to make refuelling conditional on a valid certificate relies on the ground heavily on machines functioning perfectly and pump workers acting on time.So, for now, ‘no PUCC, no fuel’ can sometimes come down to a much less certain equation: no camera catch, no announcement, no enforcement officer, no problem.Transport department did not reply to TOI’s queries regarding the issue.
