Lucknow: Transport minister Daya Shankar Singh on Wednesday accepted that the new norms for issuing fitness certificates to vehicles, as mandated by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in 2025, were not suitable. The transport minister also stated that he wrote a letter to union minister Nitin Gadkari, requesting for the implementation of the older system in districts where the new Automated Testing Stations (ATS) were not functional. Responding to a question by MLC Devendra Pratap Singh in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, the minister said that, as per orders issued by the union ministry on Dec 26, all manual testing in the absence of ATS stopped in the state, and vehicles were required to go to the closest ATS in a neighbouring district or state. Singh raised the issue of the testing facility at Mahoba shutting down, because of which vehicles, including school buses, ambulances, etc, were required to travel all the way to Jhansi to get a fitness certificate. While this process was made difficult, the police continued to issue challans in the absence of fitness certificates. The minister said that in UP, there are currently only 18 ATS, and the matter was brought to the union minister’s attention, where the state govt requested the older system to be allowed until new ATS came up. Leader of the House Keshav Prasad Maurya also assured the House that the matter would be followed until a resolution was not arrived at.
