PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recommended parameters for the performance assessment of vehicular emission control system (VETS) to the transport department.

Currently, the transport department operates the VETS, which checks vehicles for emission.

Official documents show that the KP Environmental Protection Council had decided in its first meeting on July 5, 2022, that a performance assessment of the functions of VETS and regulations of the transport emissions being performed by the transport department would carried out by the EPA before a report was submitted to the government for examination.

In its recommendations, the EPA said the fleet characterisation, which was important to estimate vehicle emissions and making decisions on testing capacities and frequencies, should be done.

It added that the exercise should only be based on vehicles registered with KP excise department but also of vehicles registered with other provinces but either permanently plying of the local roads or frequent travellers.

“Sample assessment can be carried out through traffic counts on various important roads, especially inter-provincial ones,” it said.

The environmental regulator said vehicular emissions performance internationally comprises both inspection and maintenance and that vehicles failing test should undergo repairs or maintenance to bring their emission performance up to the par.

The EPA said the assessment of follow-up mechanism, if any, in regulatory framework where vehicles, which failed emission test, were required to be repaired and improve their emission, and that should include filter or mechanism that those vehicles were kept off the road and forced to check back after a particular time to be re-assessed.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2022