ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb on Monday said that the federal and provincial governments should work together for evolving the air quality framework as well as to ensure a pollution-free environment.
The minister made these observations while speaking at a round table consultation meeting on the role of the parliament in meeting challenges of clean air.
She said that that the environment protection agencies under the Ministry of Climate Change, NGOs and civil society could also play a pro-active role in achieving this objective.
She said that the issue needed support of a better legislative mechanism evolved through consultations with all the stakeholders; necessary guidance could also be sought from the legislative models orchestrated by the other regional countries on the environmental issues. The minister of state said that the parliament could render a significant role in realising sustainable development goals.
Marriyum said that although after the 18th amendment, the subjects of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) and clean air had become the responsibility of the provinces, the federal and provincial governments ought to collaborate to meet the challenges of the environment.
The minister said that the National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, in recognition of the importance of the aforementioned objectives, had established a secretariat in the Pakistani Parliament in 2013, which has due representation of all the political parties.
Marriyum further claimed that Pakistan’s Parliament was the only legislature in the world which had a full-fledged task force on the SDGS.