KARACHI, March 8: The provincial minister for environment and alternative energy, Dr Sagheer Ahmed, has asked the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency to initiative action against polluters without any discrimination.

Presiding over a meeting of the environment department, the minister said that efforts should be made to arrest the environmental degradation in the city and if needed cases should also be prepared in the case of indifferent violators of environmental laws.

He hoped that the latest notification of the names of chairman and two members to the Environmental Tribunal (ET) by Islamabad would surely lead to the activation of the long-pending institution, which had the powers to hear the cases pertaining to pollution and environment problems and penalise the polluters.

According to the minister, now even the common people, private and public organisations could lodge cases in the ET, which was notified for Sindh about six years, under the provision of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997.

As per the federal law ministry notification, the Sindh ET with its headquarters at Karachi would be headed by Sindh High Court judge Justice Arif Khilji, while Dr Samiuzzaman and judge Sofia Lateef would perform as technical and judicial members, respectively, said an official handout.