The Department of Motor Traffic plans to introduce a comprehensive roadworthiness certificate from 2028, replacing the vehicle emission test currently required for annual revenue licence renewal.
Engineer Dasun Gamage, Director of the department’s Vehicle Emission Testing Unit, said the new certificate will assess a vehicle’s overall technical fitness rather than exhaust output alone. Braking systems, headlights, tyres and other technical conditions will be checked alongside emissions, he told NewsFirst.
Commercial passenger vehicles first
Under the first phase, comprehensive fitness testing will be extended this year to passenger transport vehicles, school transport vehicles, office transport vans and buses used for special tours — the categories carrying the most passengers, and the ones already subject to the tightest licensing conditions.
The department has begun recruiting around 300 qualified personnel and technicians to run the programme.
Applicants holding an NVQ Level 4 qualification in automobile mechanic training are eligible, as are people who own vehicle repair centres.
What it replaces
Sri Lanka has required an emission test certificate for revenue licence renewal since 2008, administered through private operators licensed by the department. The test measures exhaust emissions and nothing else, so a vehicle with worn brakes, failed lights or bald tyres can pass it and remain legally licensed.
Enforcement of the existing regime has itself been uneven. Motorists were blacklisted from renewing revenue licences earlier this year over unpaid fines linked to emission certification.
NewsFirst did not report what the new certificate will cost, whether the existing emission testing operators will be retained to carry out the wider inspection, or how the 2028 start date applies to private cars and motorcycles as against the commercial categories being covered first. No other verified Sri Lankan newsroom had reported the announcement as of Sunday morning.
