The Motor Traffic Department (DMT) has taken steps to ban vehicles with high smoke emissions in an attempt to reduce air-pollution in the City of Colombo.

The DMT is currently in the process of making arrangements to purchase 45 machines from the German government at a cost of Rs. 50 million to effectively test vehicle emissions.

Department sources said vehicles found to have high smoke emissions would be blacklisted and be given a specific period to rectify the defect.

According to DMT Commissioner S. H. Harris, vehicles belonging to the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB), the security forces and some other government institutions cannot be monitored through these schemes as they are excluded from receiving annual revenue licences.

“However, we are looking to take measures to include these vehicles as well for emission tests  in the future, and ensure all vehicles are bound by the legal system,” he said.

Mr. Harris said vehicle owners should be able to produce vehicle emission certificates along with their revenue licences in the future and that vehicles driven without proper certification would be taken over by the authorities.

The monitoring scheme is to be implemented extensively in the next three weeks as the commission has received a large number of complaints.

“There have been many complaints from the public regarding high smoke emission vehicles. Once a complaint is made and found to be true, the relevant vehicle would be blacklisted and would be given a specified time frame to fix the emission problem. Such a vehicle cannot be legally transferred to another party until its owner obtains an emission-free approval from the DMT,” DMT Commissioner Mr. Harris said. (Benislos Thushan)