EPA to review vehicular laws to control pollution levels

Punjab Environment Department has decided to review the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965 and the Provincial Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act 2012 regarding mandatory installation of catalytic converters.
During a high level meeting at the department’s head office on Monday, it was decided to formulate laws, and that all stakeholders from the provincial government, federal government, private manufacturers sector and the commercial manufacturers sector would be taken on board.
Attempts made by the government in this regard would be reviewed and final decisions would be taken in the upcoming meetings. The meeting was chaired by the Punjab Environment Minister Col (r) Shuja Khanzada.
He said that a clean environment was the basic right of every citizen and that everyone had to step forward and play their roles to control the rise in air pollution. He said that the Punjab government was willing to take every bold step to control the province’s pollution problem.
During the meeting various issues related to increasing pollution levels in the environment and those of vehicles were discussed. The installation of catalytic converters in all vehicles and other retrofit devices like particle filters in diesel vehicles would be registered in Punjab through proper legislation, they said.
The meeting was attended by Environment Secretary Anwar Rasheed, Punjab EPA DG Farooq Hameed Sheikh, EIA Director Naseem-ur-Rehman Shah, Excise and Taxation officials, Transport Department personnel and PSQCA members.
The attendants were told that vehicular pollution was the major source of air pollution and vehicles must be shifted to Euro-II to resolve this issue.
Euro-I and Euro-II are the European emission standards defining the acceptable limits for the exhausts of new vehicles. The emission standards were defined in a series of European Union directives staging the progressive introduction of increasingly stringent standards.
Almost all the automotive manufacturers had used Euro-I technology for past many years and by shifting to the Euro-II technology, the emissions of hazardous gases would be reduced by 30 percent.
The meeting was briefed that Euro-II technology vehicles had already been started in July 2012 but the supply of led-free petrol in all parts of the country was still not ensured. They added that the Euro-II technology vehicles could not be operated until the oil refineries supplied led-free petrol.
The mandatory installation of catalytic converters in vehicles in Punjab and the review of vehicle registration conditions by amending the procedures under practice were also discussed in the meeting.