LAHORE, March 13: Vehicles with two-stroke engines will have to be banned in five or six years to control growing air pollution.

This was stated by Punjab environment secretary Brig Riaz Bashir while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a three-day free commercial vehicles’ check up and tuning workshop at the Badami Bagh General Bus Stand here on Wednesday.

He said the use of vehicles with two-stroke engines had been banned in many countries around the world. Even India had switched to CNG buses. “We should not only bring on roads CNG buses but also think about the revival of the model condition.”

Brig Bashir said vehicle based environmental pollution had already reached alarming levels and further delay in bringing it under control could have disastrous effects.

He said vehicles with diesel engines were liked despite the fact that they caused eight to 10 times more pollution as compared to the vehicles using petrol. Mixing of mobile oil in diesel by some of the motorists increased the polluting capacity of such vehicles further.

He said the Punjab governor had directed him to constitute a committee for the enforcement of the environmental standards. He would form the committee with the help of other departments as his department was very small and had only a regulatory and monitoring role. He said the lead content in petrol would be completely eliminated by 2004 and sulphur content in diesel would also be reduced considerably.

District Nazim Mian Amir Mahmood said the city rickshaw drivers were increasing noise and smoke pollution by removing mufflers from the silencers and adding extra mobile oil to petrol. Rickshaw drivers in all other cities were not doing so.

He said the district government would take the rickshaw drivers to task like the theatre people if they did not refix mufflers in silencers and stopped using extra mobile oil.

He said rickshaws in India had switched to the use of CNG after imposition of a ban on the use of petrol by a court. “Rickshaws in our country should also switch to CNG not only because it reduced the operation cost to one-third but also because its use was environment friendly.”

Mian Amir said the government was working on a master plan for the general bus stand. It would start its remodelling this year and develop it into an international standard bus stand within a year and a half. The fee collection contract for the bus stand had been auctioned for Rs80 million this year against Rs45 million last year.

Punjab Transport Authority chairman B. A. Nasir said environmental pollution had become a serious problem requiring immediate action. The atmosphere in big cities had been polluted to an extent that breathing had become difficult.

He said the government should educate the people about environmental pollution because its departments formulated the regulations but could not enforce them.

He said the winter had remained dry and March was hot like May due to increase in pollution resulting from indiscriminate cutting of trees and use of substandard fuel and spares in vehicles resulting in increased emission of smoke.

Headquarters SSP (traffic) Syed Ibne Husain said smoke emitted by vehicles was more dangerous than cancer and could cause skin and nervous disorders. Similarly, the noise created by rickshaws could impair the hearing. But the rickshaw drivers not only removed the mufflers from the silencers but also mixed extra mobile oil in petrol.

He said the traffic police would cooperate in all the efforts to enforce environmental standards.

Hinopak Motors chief executive Chicahiro, director T. Kano, Total-Atlas Lubricants country manager Irfan Sheikh and Rickshaw Taxi Drivers Union president Malik Muhammad Siddiq also spoke on the occasion.