Gone are the days when Islamabad used to be called Shehr-e-Khamoshan (the silent city) and an environment friendly city, but thanks to tremendous rise in city’ population, industry and the number of vehicles plying on the metropolitan’s roads that it has become one of the most noisiest cities of the country.
Today the capital of Pakistan is a place where environmental hazards and noise pollution know no boundaries. Growing number of auto workshops near residential areas is ruining the peace and calm of the residents by causing noise and environmental pollution in violation of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) byelaws. Most of these workshops are located in Khada Market, Sector-G/7, G/11, I/9, I-8/4 and Karachi Company neighbourhood.
According to CDA’s byelaws, no polluting industry can be allowed to set up in the city’s residential areas but contrary to it, industries such as steel furnaces, steel melting, galvanising, marble cutting are mushrooming in the same areas.
In the CDA’s master plan for Islamabad, a buffer zone had been provided between industrial and residential areas of Sector I-9/10 but later on that buffer zone was converted into commercial area. And hence, that mercenary planning let the pollution industry engulf the populated areas nearby.
The industrial areas of Islamabad house as many as eight steel furnaces, which emit and each day, they discharge more than one tonne of toxic substances. Another factor that aggravates environmental hazard is that there is no water treatment facility available for these residential areas.
Since there is no areas in Islamabad designated as dumping sties for industrial waste, one can see heap of waste material outside the industrial unit in Sector-I/9 and I/10 as well as in the other parts of the city.
Meanwhile, a large number of brick kilns within and around Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) also add to the already high level of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the city’s atmosphere and hence deteriorate the air quality here.
One of the reasons of increasing number of auto workshops near the residential area is the apathy of the CDA’s enforcement directorate and they have limited their work move against vendors who temporarily encroach upon sidewalks in different parts of the capital city. So far, the CDA has conducted no major operation against these auto workshops set up near the residential areas.
People residing nearby these workshops have expressed their concerns over the increasing noise and environmental pollution. They say that they have lodged several complaints with the CDA in this regard, but the civic body have turned a blind eye towards this serious issue.
Talking to Pakistan Today on Friday, they said that they had also registered complaints with the Federal Ombudsman. They said the oversight office did ask the CDA to initiate an action against owners of automobile workshops causing pollution and inconvenience to public but to no avail.
Aftab Ahmad, a resident of Sector-G/7, said that owing to mushroom growth of auto workshops, the noise pollution is increasing every day. He said even having a good night sleep had become a luxury for many people due to that menace.
“The noise pollution is badly affecting people particularly students and patients in our neighbourhood,” he observed.
He said those workshops owners had parked a large number of vehicles on both side of roads which also caused traffic jams daily.
A CDA official told Pakistan Today that the authority had issued notices to the owners of workshops but he admitted those notices were not followed by any punitive action.
He said the reason for the CDA’s inaction was that some of the influential owners would approach the higher authorities and the matter was set aside as quickly as it was initiated.
The official admitted that the CDA was also responsible for the encroachment done by those workshop owners. “As per the CDA bylaws, no commercial centre can be set up or spread to residential areas”, he added.
