LAHORE: Environmental activists refute Environment Protection Department’s (EPD’s) pro-environment measures to curb smog and air pollution in the first 100 days of its governance.

The EPD says it worked to control smog in the first 100 days of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government and air quality index (AQI) remained `below the safe limits of 300`, and mostly between 100 to 150.“The government was supposed to determine the air quality in Lahore by installing air quality monitors, according to the Clean Air Action Plan, but no action was taken,” says Aysha Raja, founder of the Citizens for Clean Air.

“The EPD did not allocate budget to install them in the upcoming financial year. Instead, it is attacking the citizens who have installed meters, to distract the public from the crisis and throw credible sources into disrepute.”

The Clean Air Action Plan of 2017 came at the intervention of the Lahore High Court in the smog case. It attempts to examine options for the Punjab government to address the significant costs that air pollution and winter fogs have brought about. The EPD has not implemented the plan.

“They have not met a single deadline in the action plan whether in relation to mandatory inspection regime for all vehicles, or to cleaner fuel, emissions standards, the introduction of catalytic converters, buses for schools to take 75% of school traffic off the roads, etc,” adds Ms Raja. The government has not introduced any revised schedules of the shelved projects.

Pakistan is still following the 1996 standards of Euro 2 engines, while all over the world, Euro 6 is being used. At the same time, the Clean Air Action Plan itself gives the vehicle growth rate of 12% every year and that the number of vehicles in Punjab has jumped from approximately 6.6 million to 16.2 million from 2008 to 2016.

The EPD says they tickted 18,860 smoke emitting vehicles with the assistance of the traffic police and imposed a Rs840,932 fine on them.

“With such a high number of vehicles, if they claim to fine only about 18,000 of them, there is a lot of work to be done,” says Abid Omar from the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative. Ms Raja also criticised the EPD plan to convert conventional brick kilns to zigzag technology, saying that crackdown on brick kilns, and to convert them to technology depended on the money provided by the World Bank, and the funds were part of the Punjab Green Development Programme which the EPD secretary did not approve.

“No minister for environment in Punjab, no engagement with doctors and hospitals to ascertain the risk to the public, no instructions issued to schools on curtailing outdoor activity on heavily polluted days - this facts speak volumes.”

Mr Omar also disputes EPD website data, saying that Pakistan’s safe limit is 35 for the AQI, whereas EPD figures show that the average is 188.

“The air quality index and PM 2.5 measurements by air visual monitors is showing the numbers to be much higher than what the government is giving us,” he says.

In Dec 2018, for instance, the PM2.5 average in Lahore (24 hours) was recorded once to be 334micrograms per cubic metre – beyond hazardous according to international standards – while the EPD readings showed just 188 ug/m3 average.

Similarly, the EPD readings on Jan 17, 2019 were 156 AQI, while Air Visual showed an average reading of 228 in Lahore, based on the readings of eight metres. The safe limit as per local standard is 100 to 150, although internationally this is known as moderate but unhealthy for sensitive groups.

Mr Omar also says if even one brick kiln is shut down completely there would have been a 30 to 40 percent of reduction in the AQI but the index has constantly been going up since October. Did the EPD really close down 100 kilns across the province?

“Recommendations by the smog commission have been ignored and there is no plan, just a court recommendation, which has been formed into an adhoc plan,” he says. “The steps outlined by the EPD happen every year. These ‘facts’ are packaged together by the government to show semblance of action.” Environmental lawyer Ahmed Rafay Alam stressed that this was a case of public health emergency and that it needed a huge public outcry.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2019