Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India issued a new circular which made it compulsory for all the insurance providers in India to only renew the insurance when the person has an active Pollution Under Control certificate from a recognised and government-approved emission centre. The order was first issued by the Supreme Court of India in 2018. After this IRDAI mandated this and told to put the special focus of this in New Delhi region.
PUC certificate is a simple document that any person driving a motor vehicle could be asked to show by a traffic policeman. This certificate simply ensures the standards of pollution of the vehicle comply with the set norms or not. However, there has been made clear that if a person has
motor insurance right now and makes a claim, then the claim cannot be denied based on whether a person has a valid PUC certificate or not.
Why is the PUC test necessary?
There is a simple reason for why the PUC test necessarily concerns the government. A PUC certificate is a mandatory document to be carried by the vehicle at all time by the rider and there could be heavy fine in the lack of this document, thus this makes it one of the important documents like a
bike insurance that a rider must-have. Now the other factor to look at is why the government has mandated this.
The reason for having PUC is simple it keeps the vehicle heathy and in return keeps the environment healthy. There has been a rise in the pollution specifically due to the emission from a vehicle in the last two decades. The Government was concerned regarding this rise and the only way to control this was to make PUC compulsory. Many vehicles don’t pay attention to their vehicle and the burning of fuel in the wrong way to produce energy can result in a lot of pollution. We have often seen in our old days a car running with black smoke in front of our road. These cars are less now.
Efforts by Government
First of all, the government-mandated the PUC certificate which was a big effort but people often bribe the policeman and get away without having to get a PUC certificate. It was often taken as an unnecessary expense and people hardly visit the emission centre. To cope up with this heavy challan was levied over these people apart from which the last effort was to make it compulsory for insurance companies to give insurance only when the person has a valid PUC for their vehicle. This was a smart move as now the person will be concerned about getting PUC as it is about the insurance which is also mandatory.
Thus, if you are planning to
renew car insurance it would be helpful for you to have a PUC which is not just for the health of the vehicle but for the environment as well and we all as a concerned citizen of this nation must make efforts to do this.