January 15, 2007	Monday	Zilhaj 24, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

LAHORE, Jan 14: Punjab Environment Minister Dr Anjum Amjad has said lack of technical know-how and ignoring legal obligations have been observed as major constraints to enforcement of compulsory environment impact assessment.

Inaugurating a one-day training course on environment impact assessment for the district officers (environment), selected scholars and the Punjab Environment Protection Agency staff here, she said her department was also facing the problem of shortage of manpower in most districts. Efforts were being made to increase the manpower within the limited resources.

She said rapid urbanisation, haphazard industrialisation and increasing population were causing environmental pollution in the country. In Punjab, she said, it had spread over a wide spectrum resulting in health and social problems.

Utilisation of natural resources to their maximum potential in a sustainable and environment-friendly manner as highlighted in the National Environment Plan was on top of the government agenda, she said.

The minister said economic development had become the dire need of developing nations, but growth by jeopardising the needs of future generation was not justifiable. The EIA had come forward as a managerial tool for sustainable development. Assessment procedures enabled both the developers as well as the decision makers to identify impacts (both positive and negative) of the proposed development projects in advance.

She said the Punjab Environment Protection Department was striving to make the proponents to follow the EIA procedures for sustainable and environment-friendly development in the province by arranging training courses and meetings with stakeholders in industrial and public-sector projects. The government had also formulated sectoral guidelines for preparation and filing of Initial Environmental Examination and EIA reports.

PEPA Director-General Kamran Ali Khan said pollution was assuming alarming proportions with acceleration of pace of development and affecting the life of every citizen. Industries were being set up even in densely-populated areas. Air pollution level in big cities like Lahore and Karachi was 20 per cent higher than the World Health Organization standards and the country was losing three to four per cent of GDP on account of environmental pollution.

The government, he said, had made EIA compulsory for all development projects as it could not allow profit making at the cost of health of the citizens.

PLF: The Pakistan Labour Federation has demanded reinstatement of dismissed employees of the Pakistan International Airlines and lifting of restrictions on trade union activities in the Railways.

Voicing demands at a meeting held here on Sunday, federation secretary-general Haji Mohammad Saeed said the PIA employees should be reinstated as they had been sacked under the provisions of Removal from Service Ordinance without giving them a chance of defence.

He said there was no justification for imposing restrictions on trade union activities in railways (open line) under Ministry of Defence rules because it was not a part of the military set-up.

Federation chairperson Attiya Saleem said the government should stop privatisation as thousands of employees had been dismissed from industrial and commercial units after privatisation on the one hand and prices of goods and services had increased on the other.

Federation chairman Asif Fasihuddin Verdag and president Malik Shabbir Ahmad said workers and peasants would have been deprived of their rights if they failed to protect the same.