Daily Times

LAHORE: The City District Government Lahore’s (CDGL) Environment Department on Sunday conducted a massive crackdown against pollution and sealed 19 factories involved in emitting dangerous gases in the air across the city.

According to the CDGL spokesman, five teams of the said department sealed 19 factories in different parts of the city on emitting gases in air (smoke and pollution) as well as using sub-standard oil in their factories, which also polluted the city environment. He said that the CDGL teams also issued 10 notices to factory owners on not following the standard operation procedures. He said this crackdown would be continued across the city.

The Punjab Environment Department launched a crackdown against the factories violating the environment rules in the provincial metropolis thus contributing to the deteriorating situation of air pollution. Sources said that different teams conducted surprise raids on steel mills and foundries working across the city as well as its surrounding areas and causing air pollution. They sealed many units that were found guilty of causing air pollution, using sub-standard fuel and emitting smoke more than the prescribed limit.

The department has also directed all the factories to ensure use of wet scrubber (environment pollution control) devices. It also deputed mobile laboratories of the Punjab Environment Department at different locations of the city to analyse environment pollution and it’s monitoring.

The Provincial Planning and Development Department has directed all the public sector departments as well as district governments to strictly follow environmental laws before initiating any kind of public sector project to avoid future objections, criticism and law suits.

Sources said in 2010, the planning and development secretary had directed all the public sector departments as well as the district governments to include provisions of environmental laws while approving development projects. Sources claimed that in the past, several cases were reported to the P&D department in which international donors backed off from the projects or refused to approve them due to non-availability of environmental impact assessment reports of the projects.

Section 12 of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (PEPA), 1997, has made it mandatory for the public as well as private sector to make initial environmental examination (IEE) and environmental impact assessment (EIA) of every project. It is pertinent to mention that section 12 of the act also made it clear that every review of an environmental impact assessment shall be carried out with public participation.

Sources said another reason of ignoring environmental laws among the public as well as private sector was that preparing IEE or EIA report increased the project costs due to the hiring of consultants and environmental experts.