Amid growing complaints, govt auditing automated vehicle testing stations

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: With the growing number of complaints against the government’s automated testing stations (ATS) that assess vehicle fitness, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) is auditing the 178 ATS to check data bleeding and manipulation to reduce the number of unfit and end-of-life vehicles on Indian roads, according to two people aware of the development. “About 25% of all vehicle testing is now happening at ATS, and the next step is to ensure that the data is protected and not tampered with.

There have been cases of gaming the system, or even using data of one vehicle for another vehicle," said the first person mentioned above, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The government is aware of this issue and is conducting an audit of these ATS, this person said. The second person, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the challenge for the government is to reduce the number of unfit and end-of-life vehicles on the roads by accurately identifying them.

Only 0.024% vehicles out of the 1.94 million vehicles tested at ATS were declared end-of-life, and 2.22% were declared unfit for various repairable reasons, while the rest were declared fit, according to MoRTH data on its Automated Fitness Management System (AFMS) portal. For perspective, the 0.024% declared end-of-life works out to 475 vehicles, according to government data. To compare, about 10-12 million vehicles in the US and 4-5 million in the European Union (EU) are flagged as end-of-life each year, according to industry data and the EU's own statistics.