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| October 28, 2003 | Tuesday | Ramazan 1, 1424 |
Legislators express concern over pollution
ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: The ruling party legislators in the National Assembly on Monday expressed concern over the rising environmental pollution in cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, which is seen by experts as much higher than the World Health Organization (WTO) standards.
The WHO guidelines consider the density of particulate matter-10 (PM-10) between 150 and 230 micro-gram per meter cubic to be normal while the PM-10 concentration level on Murree Road is 880 micro-gram per meter cubic, at Committee Chowk 827.4 and Raja Bazaar 786.9 micro-gram per meter cubic.
The level of pollution in these areas were ascertained in a survey recently.
Vehicular emission, especially due to the traffic volume of trucks on Kashmir Road, dust raised due to crushers outside Islamabad and the smoke emitted from 350 brick kilns were generally responsible for the higher level of pollution in the twin cities.
Minister of State for Environment Tahir Iqbal in a written reply informed the house that though his ministry frequently issued broad-based policy guidelines, the enforcement of the measures was a provincial subject.
Later, in reply to a calling attention notice by Rasheed Akbar Khan and Raja Mohammad Asad Khan, the minister listed a number of measures adopted to reduce the level of pollution in the cities and said the government had already allocated an amount of Rs555 million for different environmental projects.
Mr Tahir said the government had introduced lead-free petrol in the country to check pollution, the use of CNG was being promoted besides encouraging the installation of 27 computerized car tuneup centres in different cities, for which 50 equipment have already been imported.
He said five different hospitals in the country already had incinerators to dispose of hazardous wastes while indigenously- made incinerators were being installed in other hospitals.
The government, he added, was also following a policy on the solid waste disposal, for which sites in the capital had also been identified.
He said vehicular emissions on the Kashmir Road was also being monitored and penalties were being imposed on violators of the earlier issued warnings.
The government has also asked the brick kilns to use only coal as a fuel and was introducing gas furnace for the purpose, for which equipment would be imported from China.
The six steel mills in sectors I-9 and I-10 of Islamabad have also been issued notices to install anti-pollution devices and two of them have implemented the direction, he added.
About the crushers, he said the matter was sub judice.
In addition, a project to monitor the quality of air in different cities was being forwarded to the Ecnec for approval while Rs125 million have been earmarked for tree plantation.
The movers, however, were not satisfied with the reply and alleged that on the ground nothing was being done except transferring of officers.
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