LAHORE, June 20: Environmental degradation is continuing unchecked due to inordinate delay in the formulation of appropriate standards and enforcement rules since the promulgation of the Pakistan Environment Protection Act 1997, the Environment Protection Department secretary, Brig Riaz Bashir (retired) said on Thursday.

Speaking at a meeting of the Green Forum held here, the secretary said, on one hand the environmental standards and rules were not there and on the other an adequate administrative machinery had yet to be created for their enforcement.

The policy-makers’ interest is evident from the fact that the biggest provincial department in the country has a sanctioned strength of only 419 employees. Even this strength is not available as 130 posts are lying vacant.

Brig Bashir said the federal government had been approached to formulate environmental standards and the rules for their enforcement. He said the EPD had to rely on help from other departments. The federal law, he said, favoured a participatory approach for environmental pollution.

He said the department decided, meanwhile, to encourage voluntary pollution control through the introduction of self monitoring and reporting system under which the industrialists would be encouraged to assess and disclose the extent of environmental damage being caused by their units and reduce it by 50 per cent in the first year after reporting. The pollution charge proposed for the units discharging the effluents without treatment was not being levied for the time being.

He said the EPD also lacked the capacity to assess environmental impact of an industrial project referred to it for the purpose. Steps were being taken to build the capacity by recruiting experts. There was, he said, need for environment protection provisions in a number of laws besides the Environmental Protection Act.

He said the federal government was considering a ban on the use of two-stroke engines in motor vehicles. The government had also been requested to ensure availability of lead-free petrol and sulphur-free diesel at all the petrol pumps in the country to reduce environmental degradation through vehicular emissions. The Kasur Tanneries Waste Water Treatment Plant had become operative and feasibility report was ready for a similar plant for Sialkot. Feasibility report for a plant at Multan would be ready next year.

He said pollution of the subsoil drinking water due to the seepage of untreated industrial effluents and sullage water was the biggest environmental problem followed by the problems of inadequate solid waste disposal. During the next month the EPD would collect 20 samples of drinking water each from 14 districts where it had offices.

A policy for industrial effluents disposal would be given next month. Centres for air and water degradation monitoring would also start working at Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala next month.

He said the city district government was being approached for checking the vending of petrol on the roads without a licence and to make arrangements for preventing fires. To eliminate the possibility of an accident, he said, the ban was necessary. The city government would also be approached to ensure that the trucks used by its solid waste management wing for removing garbage from the collection points in the city to the dumping grounds were covered.

He said the Exise and Taxation Department had been approached with a request to refuse registration of motor vehicles converted from petrol to diesel since the pollution caused by the latter was 12 to 14 times that caused by the former. He said the use of liquefied petroleum gas in motor vehicles was also dangerous and needed to be checked. Only the compressed natural gas was safe.

He said the EPD had been devolved and its offices had been established in 14 districts — Lahore, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Sialkot, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Jhang, Kasur, Sahiwal, Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan. He said he had approached the government to sanction another 220 officials to open offices in the remaining districts of the province. A director general was also proposed to be appointed as in the past.