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| May 24, 2003 | Saturday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 21,1424 |
Environment Protection Court established
ISLAMABAD, May 23: The Environment Protection Court (EPC) has been established in the federal capital which will deal with cases related to pollution.
A source in Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pepa) told Dawn that the local administration of Islamabad and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) were facing problems in controlling pollution.
It is for the first time that the EPC has been set up in Islamabad, the source said.
The CDA chairman, Chaudhry Abdul Rauf, expressed satisfaction over the establishment of the EPC and hoped that anti-environment activities would reduce considerably.
He said the CDA was facing problems of environmental pollution in the industrial area of I-9 and I-10 where steel- melting factories were the main contributors to pollution.
The CDA chief said seven steel mills, located in the industrial area, were issued notices for causing pollution, and their cases had been sent to Pepa.
Another CDA official said if the proprietors of these industries did not follow the instructions, stern action would be taken against them and their industries would be sealed under section 16 of the EPO.
He said the Sustainable Development Policy Institute was assisting Pepa in tackling the problem of environmental pollution and was preparing a study of pollution-emitting industries for adopting pollution control technology.
The official said a steel industry had installed a pollution control plant and managed to reduce emission to some extent.
“Before the installation of the plant, the rate of pollution being emitted by this steel mill was 3,200mg per meter cube which has been reduced to 1,300mg per metre cube. But, even after the reduction, the rate of pollution being emitted by this industry is not satisfactory as the international standard is 500mg per metre cube,” he added.
He said residents of sector I-9 and I-10 had lodged complaints against the owner of the steel mill, saying he did not use the pollution control plant to save expenditure.
The official said proprietors of these seven steel industries had been asked to use good quality scrap and avoid use of printed steel sheets and scrap with rubber and other material for steel manufacturing.
He said the authority had also given a package to the owners of these industries under which they could change their trade if they could not tackle the problem of pollution.
The official said the owner of another steel mill had changed the trade and set up a flour mill.
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