Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, January 07:
Diesel run taxi jeeps crisscrossing several areas of the twin capital district is said to be major contributor to pollution level of the State with 75-80 percent of the vehicles emanating smoke above the pollution control level.
This revelation was made by the Assistant Environmental Engineer (Chemical) of Manipur Pollution Control Board Kh Premkanta during an interaction with the Sangai Express on the sideline of Auto exhaust testing drive today at BT Park area.
Premkanta said following modification and conversion of jeeps from petrol fuel engine to diesel operated ones to ferry passengers to and from Imphal and sub-urban areas the pollution level is rapidly on the rise.
Detailing that so far out of nearly 2500 vehicles checked to ascertain pollution 1000 are two wheelers and the rest either three wheelers (auto-rickshaw) and four wheelers.
Informing that smoke released from two and three wheelers are under controllable level almost the entire fleet of taxi jeeps are well above the stipulated pollution level when the exhaust checks were conducted since October 2004, he said.
The test is being conducted under the three categories of two, three and four wheelers with the four wheelers again clustered into light, medium and heavy vehicles.
In today�s test conducted at the BT Park parking 55 jeeps were checked followed by 11 auto-rickshaws and 15 vans.
The inspection team was surprised to learn that the taxi jeeps pollutes the environment to a very high level compared to passenger buses and trucks also depending upon diesel as fuel fodder.
Explaining on the technical aspect of measuring pollution level of diesel run vehicles, Premkanta said a device called �Smoke Meter� assembled by the EnviroTech Company India is used.
The test methods are also classified as free acceleration and full loading with the permissible limit of the methods technically termed as 65 Hatridge Smoke Unit (HSU - a unit depicted by the device) and 75 HSU respectively.
Any smoke released above the two levels are treated as polluted, he added.
Regarding petrol operated vehicles, the Assistant Engineer placed permissible smoke level at 4.5 and 3 for two-stroke and four-stroke engines respectively.