RAWALPINDI: The Divisional Environment Committee on Thursday increased the fee for issuing no-objection certificate (NOC) to petrol filling stations and commercial buildings.

It said the additional amount generated through the fee will be allocated to the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) for tree plantation and establishment of greenbelts.

An additional amount of Rs50,000 will be paid by petrol filling stations and Rs100,000 by owners of commercial buildings for getting the NOC before its construction. The fee should be deposited with the Parks and Horticulture Authority. This amount will be used by PHA for plantation as environmental mitigation cost.

The environment committee will be reconstituted and in its upcoming meeting a PHA representative would be made a member of the committee so that progress on compliance with environmental mitigation cost may be made.

Additional amount generated through fee will be spent on tree plantation

The PHA Rawalpindi has been facing financial crisis and had requested the Punjab government to increase its annual funding so it would meet its operational and office expenditures.

The government asked the PHA to submit a business plan to make it free from government funding. The provincial government wanted to increase the income of PHAs so it would not seek additional funding from the government every year.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha chaired the environment committee meeting which was also attended by Additional Commissioner (Coordination) Syed Nazarat Ali, Dean of Environmental Sciences at Fatima Jinnah University Dr Uzaira Rafiq, Deputy Director Environment Mohammad Rafiq and other senior officials.

The commissioner directed the Environment Department to visit the existing commercial buildings and verify their construction as per the designs. Check the availability of parking space, especially in the plazas. Plazas where parking is not provided as per the design should be served with challans immediately.

In the meeting of the environment approval committee, a total of 16 cases were presented by the subcommittee, out of which 14 were approved while two cases were deferred due to objections.

A total of seven cases of petrol filling stations were presented out of which five were from Rawalpindi district and two from Attock. Similarly, two cases of poultry farms were presented from Jhelum district.

In commercial cases, six cases from Rawalpindi district and one warehouse case were presented. All 14 were accorded approval whereas two cases of poultry farms were deferred.

The commissioner deferred the permit of both the poultry farms with instructions to visit the sites by the committee members for checking compliance with environmental standards.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2023