Most vehicles in city fail emission test: Official
Most vehicles in city fail emission test: Official
Leony Aurora, Jakarta
More than 60 percent of diesel-fueled private vehicles and 36.2
percent of gasoline-fueled ones in Greater Jakarta do not meet
emission standards, official announced on Monday.
The data comes from spot checks involving 2,034 cars,
comprising 903 diesel-fueled and 1,131 gasoline-fueled vehicles.
The checks were carried out by the Office of the State Minister
for the Environment and the Jakarta Environmental Management
Agency.
The random spot checks were conducted in nine municipalities
in Greater Jakarta in May.
"This shows that not only public transportation vehicles, but
private vehicles as well contribute to air pollution in Jakarta,"
Ridwan Tamin, the office's assistant deputy on vehicle emissions,
told The Jakarta Post.
Public buses may be infamous for spewing out thick clouds of
black smoke, but private cars, which outnumber public vehicles by
five to one, also put out emissions.
The results of the spot checks will be used to help the
authorities revise emission standards, which are being discussed
by the state minister's office and local administrations, said
Tamin.
"It has been 10 years since we set the current national
standard," he said.
The national standard was set in 1993 and stipulates that
gasoline-fueled cars can emit a maximum of 4.5 percent carbon
monoxide (CO) and 2,400 ppm of hydrocarbons (HC). Diesel-fueled
cars' smoke opacity is limited at 25 percent.
Jakarta has applied tougher standards since 2000. For example,
cars with injection systems cannot exceed 3 percent CO and 600
ppm of HC.
Tamin said the revised standards would not top the emission
standards applied in Jakarta, which are the stiffest among all
the provinces in Indonesia.
"We will announce the revisions in September," said Tamin.
The city administration has announced that it will enforce
administrative sanctions against private vehicles that do not
comply with emission standards. Motorists who fail to obtain a
green emission sticker will not be able to obtain their vehicle
registration documents.
Jakartans must have their vehicles tested at least once a year
by one of 107 certified operators in 50 garages, which were
appointed by a "clean-air team".
To help promote clean air, the Office of the State Minister
for the Environment is holding a competition between agencies and
offices in five cities -- Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta,
Surabaya, and Denpasar -- on the emissions of their official
cars. The competition began in April.
The winner will receive an award from the state minister's
office in September.