pune the ministry of road transport and highways has appointed the citybased automotive research association of india arai as the nodal agency for implementing a project under which it plans to set up inspection and maintenance centres for vehicles in various states ten such centres are expected to come up in maharashtra karnataka andhra pradesh rajasthan and gujarat by 2012 initially the services will be available for commercial vehicles the facility will be extended to passenger vehicles and twowheelers at a later stage each centre will have a capacity to cater to around 300 vehicles per dayeach centre will have around eight to nine stations where automated testing of suspensions engine breaks among other things will be carried out the vehicles will also undergo underbody inspection the test results will certify whether a vehicle has passed the given standards of maintenance the entire concept and layout as well as the required technical assistance including software and automatic systems are being developed by the arai said shrikant marathe director arai advanced technologies will be put to use and there will be minimum manual intervention he added the arai has been proposing the concept of such centres and had even submitted a proposal to the ministry in this regard the appointment of arai as the nodal agency came three months back marathe said out of the 10 centres five will be manned by arai while agencies will be appointed to manage the other five centres locations for the centres will be finalised by the ministry marathe said the arai has formed a separate team for the project we are looking forward to commission the centres by 2012 the centres will work in two shifts offering services to around 100 vehicles everyday western countries already have such facilities in place for instance the uk has nearly 18000 such centres he added