Environment Ministry staff get the jitters after devolution

ISLAMABAD
ASMA KUNDI
Controversy over monitoring of federal capital’s environment after the devolution of Ministry of Environment is creating tension among the employees in Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pak-EPA).
Officials in both departments said that the higher authorities in Pak-EPA and CDA had been discussing transfer of powers to monitor the environment of the capital.
“The discussion turned into controversy, particularly over Pak-EPA’s role after devolution of the ministry,” said an official requesting anonymity.
He said the controversy had created a sense of insecurity among EPA’s employees who were thinking that if responsibility of capital’s environment monitoring would be given to CDA then what would be their role and whether the agency would be operational after devolution of environment ministry?
EPA Director General Asad-Ullah Faiz told Pakistan Today that he believed that controversy over the capital environment’s monitoring had created a sense of insecurity among the agency’s employees.
He said that in this scenario, if Federal Environment Agency would not be intact, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) would be the only authority that could take the responsibility of monitoring the capital’s environment.
He added that CDA was the serving body and how could it monitor the environment of the city as it was the major polluter in the city’s environment on the name of so-called developmental work.
He further said that every country has federal level environment agency for dealing the environment in their capital.
He gave United States of America’s example (USA) and said that America had an environment agency at federal level for exclusively dealing with the environment of their metropolitan.
He added that most of the officials in CDA were of the opinion that CDA had special environment department and it was already dealing with environmental issues in Islamabad.
The 18th amendment has set June 30 as the deadline for transferring the agreed subjects to the provinces through an implementation commission.
However, despite the federal government’s announcement regarding the adjustment of employee’s matters, confusion was increasing among the Pak-EPA’s employees.