The environment department of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City office has started slapping fines on drivers of polluting vehicles for ignoring warnings from the city office to carry out timely maintenance of their vehicle’s engines.

Officials warn that they will be forced to enforce more stringent actions, which could be a restriction to operating polluting vehicles on streets if drivers or vehicle owners keep flouting the municipal warning.

“We have started charging the drivers whose vehicles have failed emissions tests and have been running without carrying out engine maintenance Rs1,000 fines through traffic police,” said Jagatman Shrestha, traffic expert adviser at the Kathmandu Metropolitan City office. “This is an initial action; we will be forced to restrict polluting vehicles from the streets.”

Random on-the-spot emissions testing of vehicles has been a long overdue plan of the metropolis in its attempt to tackle growing air pollution in Kathmandu Valley. The city office started carrying out emissions testing on January 13 in coordination with the traffic police, the federal Department of Environment and the Department of Transport Management.

At the start, the metropolis carried out testing for awareness raising and warned drivers and owners to keep their vehicle engines fit to avoid fines and legal action, and had obtained written commitments from vehicles that failed the initial test.

So far, emission testing has been carried out on over 1,200 vehicles–both diesel and petrol. Officials say that of the around 1,050 diesel vehicles, including public buses, school buses, microbuses, pick-up trucks and trucks, nearly 80 percent failed emission tests. Similarly, 30 percent of petrol vehicles (both private and government cars) among the around 150 tested failed emission tests.

“School buses and some other public vehicles, which were found emitting black smoke well beyond permissible levels, have maintained their vehicle engines after the warnings,” said Shrestha. “More problems are on vehicles operating on Valley’s roads for over 20 years. Those vehicles have not been paying any kind of taxes and polluting the environment.”

The government has announced several times in the past its intention to ban vehicles older than 20 years throughout the country to reduce traffic congestion, curb air pollution, and cut down on road accidents caused by old vehicles. However, the decision has not yet been implemented.

Metropolis officials say the law has given local governments the power to prohibit the operation of vehicles that continue to emit black smoke.

Although vehicle emission testing is mainly the responsibility of federal government agencies, the constitution also mandates local governments to take measures to reduce pollution, officials say.

The metropolis has developed pollution control guidelines as per the KMC Environment and Natural Resources Protection Act-2021.

Officials say they have been testing vehicles that have already passed emission testing from the Department of Transport Management and received green stickers, as is standard for all four-wheelers on the road. However, some vehicles still emit black fumes for various reasons, including lack of timely servicing and maintenance.

Many automobile owners only get their vehicles serviced before the annual pollution test.

Meanwhile, the city office said it will soon enforce mandatory rules to keep vehicles and their seats clean, taking passenger complaints about the harassment and misbehaviours from drivers and their helpers. Officials say they are aware of the harassment passengers encounter in public vehicles.