MULTAN, Jan 21: The Punjab Environment Protection Department (EPD) is all set to kick off a survey in Muzaffargarh district from Wednesday (today) to gauge severity of the pollution being caused there by thermal power stations.

Briefing newsmen here on Tuesday, Multan district environment officer Mian Khalid Mehmood, who is also responsible to look after the environment-related issues of Muzaffargarh, said that thermal power stations in Muzaffargarh used 10,000 tons of furnace oil daily.

He said the thermal power station, Muzaffargarh, and Kot Addu power company (Kapco) did not have any facility to treat the fumes of furnace oil while AES, Lal Pir, though had the treatment plant, its management seldom used it to lessen the intensity of pollutants emitted by thermal power units.

He said due to the pollution temperature in the surrounding areas of the stations had been constantly rising by four degree Celsius as compared to the areas less-affected by the furnace oil in the district.

“Respiratory, skin and ENT diseases are common in the affected areas besides the ruination of farmland,” he added.

He said the survey was being launched on public complaints and if proved guilty the thermal power stations would be served notices under section 21 of the Environment Protection Act, 1997.

On the Multan front, he said notices had been served to the owners of 34 tanneries working within the municipality limits to explain their position regarding the pollution they were causing in the area.

He said the notices to the tanneries were served under section 142 of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance, 2001, on the direction of the district government for obnoxious smell, improper disposal of solid waste, liquid effluent, causing contamination to sub-soil water and constant source of nuisance for the area population.

He said a majority of the tanneries in Multan were situated on Nawabpur Road and they had contaminated the sub-soil water up to Bahauddin Zakariya University on Bosan Road. “Now the sub-soil water is not fit for human consumption.”

He said the tanners were asked to reply within seven days of the issuance of show cause notices and in case of non-compliance they would be challenged in the environment court. He said earlier the environment department had issued notices to the largest tanning units of Multan, that were, Khwaja Tanneries, Multan Hide and Mehr Dastgir Tanneries. Resultantly, one of them had been shifted outside the city while the remaining two had sought a grace period of six months to move outside the municipality limits.

He said during a survey some 10 illegal plastic factories were detected in the city which were used to burn polythene bags and other disposable material of this kind to recycle them for manufacturing plastic pipes and household products.

He said these factories were emitting extremely hazardous fumes that caused cancer and skin diseases. He said when served notices two of the factories closed their business while proceedings against rest of the eight had been sent to the court.