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.
An email query sent to MoRTH on 18 February did not elicit a response till press time.
This comes in the backdrop of India's de-carbonization drive and crackdown on end-of-life vehicles, with vehicular emissions accounting for 12% of total energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the country.
The development assumes significance given that one in every four vehicle fitness tests is now conducted at these ATS, with the government planning to secure data exchange between the testing station and the central server through end-to-end encryption and reduce human intervention.
- The government is auditing all 178 ATSs to stop data manipulation and vehicle swapping during fitness tests.
- Only 0.024% of tested vehicles are being flagged as end-of-life, suggesting the system is being bypassed.
- Automated testing now accounts for 25% of all vehicle fitness checks in India, up from 10% just a year ago.
- The government plans to introduce end-to-end encryption to prevent human interference in test results.
- The integrity of ATS is vital for providing ‘feedstock’ to India’s struggling vehicle scrapping facilities.
Strengthening data integrity
The use of ATS is increasing in India, the world's third-largest automobile market by sales, with more than 418 million vehicles registered in the country to date, according to the government’s Vahan vehicle registry.
The MoRTH rules state that private vehicles must undergo mandatory fitness checks after 15 years of use, while commercial vehicles must be tested after eight years and then every year.
To be clear, end-of-life vehicles are petrol and diesel vehicles older than 15 and 10 years from registration in the Delhi-NCR, but in other jurisdictions, it is those vehicles that have been declared unfit by automated fitness tests and cannot be repaired, according to MoRTH rules.
Mint reported in September that consumer preference was shifting from fitness tests at regional transport offices (RTOs) to ATS, with one in four vehicle testing appointments through ATS in 2025, from one in 10 in 2024, citing data from the government’s Parivahan Analytics Portal.
Domain experts said there needs to be more widespread adoption of ATS.
While ATS infrastructure has scaled up, there is a need to ensure these are more widespread, said Ashim Sharma, senior partner and group head at Nomura Research Institute, adding, “In the areas that have an ATS, all testing of vehicles must be done only through these and not manually at RTOs and lastly, all processes must be stringently followed in the ATS to ensure End of Life Vehicles can be identified.” If actions are taken in a concerted manner, ATS could form the backbone of the recycling ecosystem by providing the feedstock to the RVSFs.
RVSFs are registered vehicle scrapping facilities, where owners can take their end-of-life vehicles for dismantling or recycling, Sharma added.
Mint reported earlier in July 2025 that the government had sought data from the industry on the low offtake of vehicle scrapping facilities.