LAHORE: Environmentalists and members of the civil society on Tuesday rejected the Punjab government’s recently formulated policy on smog, saying it contains various flaws in terms of implementation, adding that no concrete evidence of India’s involvement in the smog was found.
Addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club, the concerned citizens said that the people of the largest province of the country were suffering due to pollution and were made to face the spell of toxic smog due to Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) negligence. They said that this was a matter of serious concern which could not be neglected, but government had given a free hand to inefficient and corrupt officials to run the EPA.
College of Earth and Environmental Sciences Principal Dr Sajid Rashid said that smog was not a new phenomenon, and it was the responsibility of the authorities concerned to keep check on the air quality, which they were reluctant to do. He said that in 2014, the authorities concerned were warned to improve air quality or else face an uncontrollable situation of increased pollution. He further said that, “Smog has finally enveloped the major cities of Punjab, but the government is still using delaying tactics.”
Criticising the smog policy, he said that though it was a good step, still the plans did not mention any road map which would give rise to problems during the implementation phase. “The thing is that we must have knowledge about the air quality index, but the EPA is still unable to get fixed readings,” he added.
Lahore Bachao Tehreek’s (LBT) Imrana Tiwana said that during the last decade, the government had wasted millions of rupees on high-tech machinery which went to waste when the department concerned failed to put it to use.
“The EPA has time and again claimed to have installed air quality monitoring stations, but the machines are substandard and not calibrated per international specifications,” she said, adding that the EPA equipment was not calibrated to measure fine particulate matters (PM2.5) in the air, which was the most hazardous air pollutant of all.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan Today on Monday had published a report regarding inefficiency of EPA for failing to measure the air pollutant PM2.5. The link is as under:
EPA’s equipment not fit to measure air quality amid severe smog
Lamenting on EPA’s efficiency, Tiwana said that government had spent billions of rupees from the public exchequer on road and building projects, while conveniently ignoring basic facilities. “Today people are dying because of poor air quality and the government is still showing reluctance to take action, which equals to criminal negligence,” she added.
On the occasion, Environmental Consultant Association Pakistan (ECAP) President Syed Nihal Asghar said that EPA could not measure the hazardous air pollutants as it had procured sub-standard equipment. He blamed EPA Director Tauqeer Qureshi for intentionally making an amendment in Punjab Environmental Quality Standards regarding the beta ray absorption method to procure the necessary equipment, which was not certified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).
“After procuring substandard equipment, EPA officials transferred the competent staff trained by the experts of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and hired new untrained staff on high salaries,” Asghar said, while adding that this year EPA allegedly procured five more sub-standard Airpointers, even though an inquiry was being initiated regarding purchase of the said equipment in 2016.
It was pointed out by the environmental experts that EPA had failed to monitor the precise and accurate air quality on time due to the lack of capacity building. They said that blaming the burning paddies stubble in India as the reason behind the smog in Pakistan was without merits, since EPA had not been able to produce concrete evidence of cross-border pollutions in this connection.
