24 January 2004	Saturday	01 Zilhaj 1424

LAHORE, Jan 23: The Punjab Environment Protection Department has decided to scrap the Self-Monitoring and Reporting Tools (Smart) programme after failing to make industrialists submit pollution assessment reports. The SMART was launched in April last.

Under the programme, the industrial units, which generate a huge amount of waste, had to submit pollution assessment reports to the EPD on a quarterly basis. In the light of the reports, the EPD had to propose installation of water treatment plants or impose pollution charge/fine on those creating pollution.

But only five industrial units, out of 66,000 in the province, submitted their reports till this month. Besides, none of the 237 tanneries in Kasur submitted the report either.

Environment Minister Makhdoom Ashfaq also admitted in a news conference on Thursday that the SMART was launched without updating it on modern National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS), and it also had certain flaws.

According to a senior EPD official, the programme was bound to fail due to its nature (volunteer assessment by the industrial units). He said none of the industrialists was willing to submit the pollution report, fearing that it could be used as an incriminating evidence against it in future.

"Almost all medium and large industrial units in the province, which are without water treatment plants, are contaminating irrigation channels, canals and rivers."

He said unless the government introduced a comprehensive plan to nail those industrialists reluctant to install water treatment plants, water pollution would continue.

It is pertinent to mention that the self-assessment or monitoring of pollution by industries themselves is not possible because the whole process requires expensive laboratory tests.

The SMART was initiated in view of implementation of the World Trade Organization in Pakistan from 2005. Under the WTO, no industry could export its products without being certified under ISO 14,001.

An environment advocate told this reporter that the EPD should have implemented the SMART with coercion. He said before the launch of the programme it was not realised that the industrialists might not give a detailed account of pollution their industries were generating.

He suggested that the EPD should form a monitoring body at district level to check industrial pollution and recommend action on its findings. In Lahore, as many as 200 industrial units are illegally disposing of waste in the canal and irrigation channels, spreading diseases in the adjoining areas.

Besides, the waste of tanneries in Kasur and Sialkot are contaminating the drinking water of the housing colonies. Ironically, the EPD had registered only 89 cases against the industrial units and tanneries across the province for environmental pollution in 2003.