PESHAWAR: The director general of KP Environmental Protection Agency, Amjad Ali, has said that all the chipboard units in Peshawar have neither obtained construction environmental approval nor operational approval from EPA and are operating illegally.

A statement issued by the non-governmental Sarhad Conservation Network (SCN) said that Mr Ali told a meeting that all those units were close to residential areas and posed a serious health hazard. It said that the meeting was chaired by the secretary of forestry, environment and wildlife department, Shahidullah, and attended by EPA officials, industry representative and expert team members from civil society.

The secretary environment on the occasion said that implementation of environmental law was responsibility of government and National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) were applicable to all the industries in Pakistan.

He directed the chipboard units to implement timeline of pollution control measures at their factories.

The statement said that earlier a team of experts comprising Dr Shafiqur Rahman and Dr Faisal Khan from SCN and Dr Asif Khan from University of Engineering and Technology visited the chipboard units along with Mohammad Irshad, the chief analyst of EPA.

Syed Aftab Hayat, the representative of All Pakistan Chipboard Association, said that his association was trying to find out the best possible solution to hazardous emissions as recommended by the experts. He requested for relaxation of timeline.

The chief analyst of EPA said that under government directions, sealing orders were issued against 10 steel furnaces. He added that seven of them were sealed by the district administration.

He said that the remaining three furnaces were granted time for installation of pollution control system. Only one of seven furnaces had pollution control system.

The director general of EPA had issued notices to all the chipboard units and steel mills and grinding units/crushing plants under sections 13 and 11 of Environmental Protection Act, 2014.

Rehan Afridi, the representative of Fata Steel Mills Association, stated that presently out of the 36 steel units, six were working on installation of the system while the remaining would need two months to do so.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2021