ISLAMABAD, Nov 16: After months of bickering, the federal ministries of environment and science and technology (S&T) have agreed to send the over Rs1 billion Environmental Monitoring Systems (EMSs) project to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for final approval.

State Minister for Environment Tahir Iqbal told this reporter on Saturday that differences between his and the S&T ministry over the project had been resolved. He said a special committee comprising highly technical people from both the ministries had agreed in principle that environmental monitoring infrastructure such as EMSs was of critical importance to control the ever increasing levels of water and air pollution in the country.

It is worth-mentioning here that the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) had approved the project in February for consideration of the Ecnec. However, when the project was moved to the Ecnec, the in charge minister of the federal ministry of S&T, Dr Attaur Rehman, raised objections as a result of which the project was deferred.

Subsequently, a committee was constituted to sort out the differences between the two ministries so that the project could again be moved to the Ecnec.

In response to a question, the environment minister said one of the objections raised by the science minister was that the public sector already had environment monitoring facilities, hence the project should be reviewed.

“The ministry of S&T may have some laboratories for this purpose, but as far as the environment ministry is concerned, it needs to have this kind of facilities to effectively control pollution,” he maintained.

“If at all, the S&T ministry has labs by using which levels of air and water pollutions can be monitored in the major cities, the EMSs can be shifted to smaller urban centres,” the minister said.

Under the project, EMSs would be set up in Quetta, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and Islamabad and later on this facility would be extended to the rest of the pollution-affected cities.

Referring to India, China, Sri Lanka and other regional countries, the minister said Pakistan was the only country which didn’t have the EMSs. “Unless we have a genuine data on the levels of pollution, it is absolutely impossible to control this menace in the country that is increasing with every passing day,” he argued.

He said the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) had agreed to finance this venture only after an indepth study.