KARACHI, July 15: The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), a mandatory measure aimed at ensuring sustainable development in a pollution-free atmosphere, has largely been overlooked while designing and executing mega projects. Conservationists attribute the trend to a lack of institutional support and absence of political commitment.
Environmental rules make it mandatory upon the owners and sponsors of projects like expressway, bypass, major roads, housing schemes, bridges, water supply projects, oil and gas exploration, power plants, desalination plants, industrial waste treatment plants, industrial, chemical and manufacturing plants, commercialisation of roads and residential plots, installation of fuel stations etc to make sure that no environmental hazards are involved.
For the purpose, the environmental impact assessment is undertaken before allowing execution of such projects.
Relevant government agencies are required to thoroughly review a proposed project right from the state of its launching to that of operation.
However, while the agencies appeared not as much active as they should be, the higher authorities seem lacking the will to make it 100 per cent sure that no mega project is allowed to be executed without undergoing such an assessment and getting a clearance as per the environmental rules, conservation activists observe.
According to a research conducted last year, one federal and four environmental protection agencies received a total of 64 EIA reports pertaining to the projects proposed over a period of five years (2000-2004). They granted approval to 46 projects.
Executive Committee of the National Economic Council had decided in July 2004 that “in case of development projects having environmental implications, an EIA report should be submitted along with the project at the time of getting approval.”
Last year, all government agencies were informed that acquisition of clearance from the environmental concerned for the execution of public sector projects would be a must in future.
Govt unconcerned?
An environmental activist noted that only this year, at least three development projects pertaining to expressway and medical towers in the public sector and a power plant in the private sector were launched by the president, the prime minister and the governor in the city without the EIA process having been initiated or completed.
A former director general of the PCSIR, Dr Mirza Arshad Ali Beg, said the EIA should be considered as a management mechanism that could provide the proponents, decision-makers and general public an understanding of the potential environmental effects relating to the project in review.
“EIA provides chances to avoid or minimize negative impacts as far as possible, bearing in mind the costs and benefits of using the resources of the ecosystem in the project area, while committing to the goals of sustainable development as against rapid development that are cost-raising and not cost-effective,” he added.
He said many of the ventures, especially mega projects, e.g. the irrigation system, the motorway, housing schemes and cement factories, had irreversibly altered the ecology of their environment.
Referring to the disregard being shown to the EIA or project proponents’ practice of finding a short-cut for obtaining an NOC, Dr Beg noted that some proponents described the assessment as a useless exercise meant only to delay the development projects. “The decision-makers should be reminded that it is not for them to decide whether the exercise is useful or otherwise,” he said, adding that the rules and regulations laid down in the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 had to be followed by proponents and all concerned.
Commitment
After holding consultative meetings with stakeholders of the housing sector in April 2004, the then adviser to the Sindh chief minister on environment and alternative energy had announced the government’s decision to enforce the EIA regulations for new building projects in Karachi.
The adviser was of the view that the city was expanding rapidly due to urban development which entailed adverse environmental impact, aggravated by ineffective management, maintaining that it was time to ensure harmonization of different sectoral actions and institutions involved in the urban development.
Despite the adviser’s announcement, observance of the environmental rules could not be seen in the following months and years.
Commenting on the situation, Sindh Minister for Environment and Alternative Energy Dr Sagheer Ahmad said his department was serious towards compliance of EIA rules, pointing out that the government departments executing development projects had already been issued directives in this regard.
Talking about political commitment, he said the Sindh governor and minister for planning and development, as well as the city nazim had also held out the assurance that implementation of the EIA rules would be ensured. “We have also sent letters to various organisations and stakeholders, informing them about the EIA requirement,” the minister said, saying that non-observance of the rules by the private and public sector could be attributed to their lack of awareness on the subject.
Check on polluters
Director General of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency Asif Shuja Khan told Dawn that provincial protection agencies were very much in a position to issue environment protection order to the quarters avoiding the EIA criteria. Moreover, any aggrieved citizen could also submit a petition to the environmental protection agency concerned against polluters and violators of EIA laws. “The agency is bound to do the needful,” Mr Khan said, claiming that the overall situation pertaining to EIA was improving in the country and now the projects both in the public and private sectors were being subjected to environmental impact assessment.
At the same time, he emphasized on monitoring by EPA of projects in the pre-construction and the following stages.
“The EIA is aimed at arresting environmental degradation at the planning stage of any development project,” said a Sepa official, adding that by identifying the adverse effects of any project at an early stage, it would be possible for the proponents to timely modify and improve the project design.
