KARACHI: The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has recently received a letter by a non-governmental organisation, calling upon the environmental watchdog to cancel the public hearing of a bus rapid transit project it had organised on Oct 16.

The particular hearing chaired by Sepa senior director pertained to the proposed Phase one of the Red Line project involving its detailed engineering design, procurement and construction management.

Its environmental impact assessment (EIA) was jointly prepared by Mott-MacDonald Ltd and MM Pakistan.

The project costing about $220 million would be financed largely through the Asian Development Bank with 25 per cent government contribution.

According to the letter written by Dr Syed Raza Ali Gardezi, general secretary of the Citizens for Environment, some of the data presented at the public hearing by the project consultants was different from that of the EIA report uploaded on Sepa’s website.

“The presentation included changed parameters and data which is not included in the EIA report. Foremost being the length of the corridor which is given as 23 plus km, both in the public notice and the EIA report, whereas today’s presentation gave the corridor’s length as 29.5km.

“Where has this 6km come from? Also, the EIA report gave no schematics of the two depot lands, whereas today the schematics of the two depots were shown,” the letter dated Oct 16 says.

It also highlighted that the consultant during the EIA report presentation stated that the report on Sepa’s website was prepared in May 2018 and “is incomplete” whereas the final version of the EIA report would be completed by Nov 2018.

“To hold a public hearing when the public has been provided incomplete data invalidates the whole process of inviting public objections.

“How can the public be expected to lodge valid objections when they have not been informed of correct parameters and data?

“It is therefore requested that in compliance of the law, today’s public hearing be declared void ab initio and a fresh public hearing be called by Sepa after the EIA reports have been finalised and compiled,” the letter stated.

When contacted, a Sepa official admitted receiving the letter and the point raised on the corridor’s enhanced length.

“We have asked the project proponent to submit their reply in writing on all the objections raised during the public hearing as well as this one. As for the second objection, I would say that the project proponent wanted to say that the EIA report couldn’t be considered the final version since Sepa’s concerns and recommendations would be added to it at a later stage.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2018