KARACHI, June 14: Besides public transport, private vehicles, including cars, jeeps and pickups, deserve equal blame for environmental pollution.

Sources told Dawn that a team of Sindh Environmental Protection Agency during a recent survey of vehicles aimed at checking the level of smoke emissions and noise pollution found that 55 to 65 per cent of the vehicles tested were contributing to air and noise pollution in the city.

A source said the vehicle pollution test, which was conducted in Federal B. Area, Korangi and Gulshan-i-Iqbal for three days, mostly involved private cars, pickups, jeeps and wagons. It was discovered that the survey’s result was not very different from the one reported by a government agency last year.

About 240 vehicles were scrutinised by the Sepa team with the help of an automated analyser to find out the level of emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxides and carbon dioxides from the vehicles and respective noise generation on roads. The worst were old-make and those run on diesel fuel, the source added.

According to experts, poor maintenance and excessive commercial use of vehicles, fuel adulteration, use of lubricants of substandard quality and poor traffic management largely result in vehicle pollution.

The adverse impact of public and private transport on the quality of air has been very severe.

The human exposure to elevated levels of harmful pollutants generated by buses and other transport vehicles have been contributing to increased incidence of illness and reduction in human life span, commented a medical expert.

The environment department source said that the drive for free checking of vehicles was undertaken on the directives of the environment minister to educate the vehicle drivers and owners about the environmental issues. Similar campaigns involving petroleum dealers are also on cards, the source added.