PESHAWAR, March 19: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NWFP, is undergoing a major change in its organizational status after being directed by the provincial government to assume the role of an implementation agency and ensure results.

"The government was not happy with the EPA's performance and asked its officials to do something practical to give the desired results," said a knowledgeable source.

Establishedin 1989 under the EnvironmentalProtection Ordinance, 1983, the EPA - which is now being governed under the Environmental Protection Act, 1997 - is a regulatory body responsible to take action against polluters and those responsible for environmental degradation.

However, the sources said, the EPA was recently directed to take on practical measures by executing development projects to 'justify its existence'. The agency has designed some nine development projects for execution during the 2003-04 financial year, involving a total investment of Rs 76 million.

The agency had been allocated a sum of Rs 15.6 million to spend on seven of the nine projects and of that an amount slightly over Rs 10 million was put at its disposal by the provincial government.

Thegovernment'smove of assigning theroleofan implementation agency to the provincial EPA hasattracted reservations from the official development planners and experts associated with independent agencies involved in designing, planningand executing development activitiestocontrol environmental standards in the NWFP.

"It (EPA) lacks the capacity to assume the new role," said a senior development planner of the province, adding that "last year the agency's development expenditure stood at the zero level".

Even during the current financial year the agency had not been able to put up an impressive show as far as executing the development schemes at a fast pace was concerned.

Officials concerned in the EPA, when contacted, said that the agency was doing much more than its capacity and resources. "The EPA is a regulatory body which does not have a regular force to enforce its writ," said the EPA official, adding that "how could an agency like EPA get 100 per cent of the desired results without having a proper force".

The sources said that lacking a regular force had always hampered the agency to lay an effective hand on the violators causing environmental degradation in urban and rural areas of the province.

"The EPA is supposed to cover the whole of the province with a staff of hardly 60 employees involving large majority of non- technical staff," said the official, adding that "without a field force violators can not be dealt with effectively."

"Ours is a small organization responsible to look after the whole of the province," said an other official source. Independent environmental experts, who have closely been working with the EPA, said that the agency lacked sense of direction rendering it to be least effective in discharging its due role.

The agency, added an expert on urban environment, could have been a powerful entity by discharging its role in the light of theenvironmentalprotection act, 1997.

"But, it is direction less and lacks vision to improve deteriorating environmental standards in the province," said the expert. The EPA sources said that the agency had never been provided the funds it required undermining its efficiency.

One of the officials said that out of 33 cases filed in the environmental tribunal against as many industrialists under the charges of causing harm to environment, some nine had been admitted for full hearing.

The agency was among the members of the Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) and was playing an explicit role from that forum for the betterment ofthe environmental standards.

Besides, administrative action against violators pertaining to thebrick kiln sector, marble factories, industries not fulfilling National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS), owners of vehicles causing air pollution were some of the good works the agency had put up since its establishment, added a senior EPA officer.