PESHAWAR, April 12: Petrol pumps and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations have cropped up over the width and breadth of the provincial metropolis, with the powerful oil business conveniently disregarding all other considerations.

In flagrant violation of the government policy, public and private sectors have installed petrol pumps and CNG stations inside congested areas, near schools and military installations. Petroleum tycoons have occupied all prime locations in the city, without keeping in mind public safety and environmental hazards.

The NWFP government had constituted a committee in 1996 to frame a concrete policy under the guidelines of Petroleum and Explosives Act for the establishment of new petrol pumps in the Peshawar city and on highways in the province.

Under the policy, one filling station must be at least one kilometre away from another in the city and there should be at least three kilometres distance between two filling stations on highways. The government also issued directives that a CNG station should not be established in close proximity to the petrol pumps. However, in a number of cases CNG stations have been functioning on the premises of petrol pumps.

The committee pointed out that the provincial capital was already saturated with petrol pumps, therefore, issuing of no objection certificate (NOC) for new filling stations in the municipality and cantonment areas should be avoided. Similarly, the committee made it mandatory that a filling station set up in the city and on highways shall have to cover a minimum area of four and eight kanals, respectively.

Despite the committee recommendations, the authorities are issuing NOCs for new petrol pumps in the city which has res-ulted in their mushroom growth. At present, the provincial capital has 43 filling stations, owned by army, Frontier Con-stabulary, Frontier Corps, Ben-evolent Fund and the private sector.

Only the busy Jamrud Road has 12 petrol pumps and CNG stations and the avenue is likely to get more filling stations in the near future. But the authorities discarded the Initial Enviro-nmental Examination and En-vironmental Impact Assessment surveys to gauge environmental impacts of this phenomenon.