ISLAMABAD, Sept 20: State minister for environment Tahir Iqbal has said the country is in dire need of water and air pollution monitoring infrastructure.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Iqbal said his ministry would pursue the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for approval of the setting up of Environmental Monitoring Systems (EMSs). The project is estimated to cost about Rs1 billion.

“We have already done our homework and are hopeful that the Committee would be willing to approve the project in its next meeting in the coming month,” the minister said.

In response to a question, he said, at present neither private nor the public sector had such mechanism whereby regular monitoring of water and air pollution levels could be conducted.

He said there were a few outdated studies conducted by some international organizations some time back, telling the levels of pollution in the urban centres of the country. These statistics, he added, were every time used by the government organizations concerned to make presentations whenever asked. “Therefore, so far, despite spending millions of rupees, the country lacks some effective pollution-controlling mechanism as we don’t have pollution monitoring systems in place,” he said.

He offered no comment when asked about the factors that led to the deferment of the project during the last Ecnec meeting. He said the ministry was working on the project for quite some time and would leave no stone unturned to implement it.

In the past, Mr Iqbal said, a number of such projects were made, however, these were never implemented due to lack of determination on the part of the planners.