PESHAWAR, Aug 30: The provincial government has allocated Rs22 million for an effluent treatment plant in the Hayatabad Industrial Estate, official sources said. The industrial units in Hayatabad lack treatment facility for the hazardous waste they discharge, posing serious threat to the environment.

They discharge untreated effluents mostly into the river Kabul. The river water, used for irrigation and washing and bathing, is polluted with industrial waste, an environmental survey has found.

"The river Kabul has become almost a dumping place as industrial units dispose of effluents into it," an environmentalist told Dawn. The Sarhad Development Authority (SDA), Environmental Protection Agency and Pakistan Council of Scientific Industrial Research Laboratories (PCSIR), in collaboration with other government departments, have planned to set up a main waste water treatment plant in Hayatabad.

The official sources said that Hayatabad's industrial units posed environmental hazards as they were without an effluent treatment facility. The government agencies now intend to pressure these units to cooperate in reducing pollution by installing waste-water treatment plants.

At present, not a single unit among Hayatabad's 80 units is fitted with a waste-water treatment plant. "In the entire NWFP, only two industrial units - Pakistan Tobacco Company and a unit in Gadoon - have this facility," said an PCSIR official.

The plant to be installed in Hayatabad would be monitored by the PCSIR and EPA. The PCSIR would provide technical help to individual units in the installation of water treatment plants.

Nearly a decade ago, one such plant was installed for the commercial units working in Hayatabad, but it proved ineffective. Another plant was established with the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank on Warsak Road but that too was not working properly.

The new plant for the treatment of water discharged from Hayatabad Industrial Estate would be established at the same place where the non-functional one already exists.

Initially, the PCSIR would prepare a blueprint and the government would try to persuade industrialists to install treatment plants at their commercial units. "It would take us three months in developing waste-water technology after water characterization and other research work," said a researcher at the PCSIR laboratories.

A separate main sewerage line from Hayatabad Township would be connected to the main drainage line at Warsak Canal for treatment of waste flowing from residential areas.

Under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997, the EPA can refer cases to environmental tribunals in case of violation of the National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS) and direct the persons responsible to take measures in a specific timeframe or face cases in the tribunals.