LAHORE, Oct 1: Over 200 industries are discharging waste water into the Ravi, according to the Punjab Environment Protection Department.

Talking to Dawn on Wednesday, the EPD officials said disposing of untreated toxic waste water into the river was harmful to fish species and animals.

They said the polluted water was also jeopardizing human health and had become a carrier of diseases in the adjoining residential colonies.

The industries in Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot are said to be contributing major pollution loads into their water bodies.

Environment advocate Anjum Javed Khan said the EPD had won a case in 1998 against 121 industries responsible for polluting the Ravi by discharging toxic waste water. “Now there is a need to take strict action against those industries, which are without the water treatment plants and pumping waste water into canals and rivers in the province.”

Mr Khan said the EPD should evolve a comprehensive strategy in this regard and give the industrialists a precise time-frame to install water treatment plants.

Of the 6,600 industries in the province, not more than 41 have water treatment plants. Most of these are set up without any proper planning and water treatment plants.

It is learnt that installation of the water treatment plant is quite expensive. Therefore, the industrialists want financial support from the government for the installation of water treatment plants in a cluster form.

Under the World Trade Organization, no industry will be allowed to export its products without being declared environmentally friendly.

The EPD has launched a Self-Monitoring and Reporting Tools programme under which all the provincial industries have to assess pollution they are generating. However, few of these have been registered under this programme so far.

Concern: Serious concern was expressed on the environmental degradation and the poor implementation of environmental laws at a workshop on the Environmental Laws and Environmental Impact Assessment held here on Wednesday.

The workshop was organized by the Punjab Environment Protection Department in collaboration with the IUCN at the Punjab University, Law College.

City District Government Environment Officer Tariq Zaman said the Pakistan Environment Protection Act (PEPA) 1997 was a single comprehensive law which provided for protection, conservation, rehabilitation and improvement of environment. He said the legal provision could not lead to desirable results without its effective implementation.

Since the promulgation of the PEPA, he said not much attention had been paid into providing necessary resources to the EPD and other agencies for its effective implementation.

Environment advocate Anjum Jawaid Khan said that EPD officers should be trained in such a way that they could deal with the violators of environmental laws in the province. He also suggested that the EPD’s budget should be increased so that it could be equipped with modern facilities to assess the environmental degradation.

Pointing out fundamental flaws in the environmental legislation, he said that after promulgation of the environment protection ordinance in 1983, not a single case was brought to court under this law which showed its ineffectiveness. Same was the case with the PEPA 1997.

Mr Jawaid underlined the need for delegating powers to provincial EPAs regarding fee charges and dealing with the offences of the corporate sector and government agencies.

There was no procedural rules to implement the acts like handling of hazardous waste, sustainable development fund utilization rules, regulation of motor vehicles and administrative penalty rules, he said.

He also proposed that all industries should undergo an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and be dealt with according to its result. The EIA model should be developed keeping in view the country’s requirements. He said the World and Asian Development Banks had refused to provide loan for any project unless it was undergone the EIA. He said the EIA cost only 0.5 per cent of the total cost of a project.

EPD secretary Kamran Lashari stressed upon the importance of such capacity building workshops. To create environment awareness in the general public, he said NGOs and students should come forward and launch campaigns at community level. He also urged the media to play its due role in creating environment awareness among the masses.

IUCN representative Ferhan Sami said that in the last two decades a number of environmental laws were enacted but none of them being properly implemented.

He also highlighted the history and development of IUCN and its role in the formation of PEPA.

Advocate Javed Hasan explained the importance of EPD, the working of environmental tribunal and other sections of the Act.