ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The environmental watch dog and civil society have joined hands to fight air pollution in the capital city, an official of the agency told Dawn.

A joint committee comprising representatives of the civil society and the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA), would monitor steel furnaces that are responsible for spreading pollution in industrial sectors.

They would start inspecting these furnaces and make recommendations about the control of hazardous particles billowing from the furnaces due to use of substandard scrap into the air, the official said.

The residents of I-9 and I-10 sectors have time and again lodged complaints with the agency against these factories for not installing pollution control devices, as a result of which the mills have become a major source of environmental pollution in the area.

They have also reported increase in the respiratory diseases due to air pollution.

The agency has reported that some of the steel furnaces are not following its recommendations to control hazardous smoke emissions in the area.

“We can only issue environmental protection order (EPO), which the agency has been issuing quite regularly”, an official of the agency said.

“After every inspection the owners of the pollution spreading steel furnaces are asked to use good quality scrap instead of printed steel sheets and scrap with rubber and other material in the manufacturing process.”

They are also instructed to install special devices for controlling hazardous particles from being emitted into the air. However, they never followed these suggestions.

In response to a query, the official said, “there are about 10 steel furnaces and four of them are real culprits.”

Recently, Mian Muhammad Aslam, member of the National Assembly approached the agency and suggested joint monitoring of the steel furnaces, the official said.

The MNA wants to take everybody on board to control the damage, the official said. However, he sounded a strong warning to the owners of steel furnaces to co-operate with the agency or face the music. “It will be the final inspection and if they did not cooperate with the agency, they will have to face consequences.”

“Apparently they (factory owners) are not looking serious and there is no fun in issuing them EPOs, but the time has come to take some punitive action against the polluters”, sources said.