THE Punjab government’s initiative to curb seasonal smog by inspecting vehicle emissions is undeniably crucial. However, the current plan is suffering owing to severe administrative haste and a glaring infrastructure mismatch. Lahore alone has about 3.5 million vehicles of all sorts requiring annual emission clearance. Yet, responsibility has bounced between the Environment Protection and Climate Change Department (EPCCD) and the Punjab Provincial Transport Authority (PTA), resulting in a bottleneck of barely 30 testing bays and mobile booths.

Mathematically, passing 3.5 million vehicles through 30 bays, even operating round-the-clock, is impossible within the government’s aggressive compliance deadlines. The result is administrative chaos: long queues seen at the centres, wasting millions of productive citizen hours in idling traffic, generating even more smog.

Regional counterparts demonstrate how this should be executed. Delhi manages eight million vehicles through 950 decentralised testing kiosks located at petrol pumps. Jakarta services 4.5 million cars through more than 350 certified private workshops synced to a central app, while Bangkok employs over 500 franchised inspection stations. Successful cities decouple testing from state-run depots and distribute compliance across neigh- bourhood grid points. Lahore’s crisis is not public non-compliance, but state-created paralysis. Mandating fines without expanding capacity is like putting the cart before the horse.

To achieve real smog reduction without crippling urban mobility, the government must immediately shift to an open-licensing model, authorising certified private workshops, quick-lube bays, and fuelling stations to issue cloud-verified emission stickers. Penalties should only follow accessible infrastructure, not precede it.

Pervaiz Sarwar
Lahore

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2026