ISLAMABAD, May 25: The government has planned to set up air and water quality monitoring system worth Rs1 billion with the assistance of Japan in six cities.

This was stated by the minister of state for environment, Maj Tahir Iqbal (retired) at the APP forum here on Friday. The statement was released by the agency on Sunday following a suo motu notice taken by the Chief Justice of Pakistan on Saturday asking the federal as well as provincial governments to take steps for arresting environmental degradation.

The state minister said besides the twin cities of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Quetta will have mobile labs and static stations to asses the environmental situation.

The minister said 14 stations each would be set up in these cities connecting them to the main station at the federal capital.

“We have asked them for equipment instead of cash and a team of Japanese experts is reaching here in July to asses the per unit cost of these stations,” he said.

The system also includes three years management which would be completed within next two years, he added.

Besides this, the environment ministry has prepared projects worth Rs350 million for the next fiscal year to better environment.

The projects, to be approved by Ecnec (Executive Committee of the National Economic Council) include setting up of more tune-up centres, environment tribunals and monitoring system, small effluent treatment plants and introducing energy conservation boilers in industries, safety and emission testing programme, conversion of diesel vehicles to gas, afforestation and wetland.

The minister said the government had devised a multi-pronged policy to control environmental degradation.

“We are facing a number of challenges at national and international level particularly in the WTO perspective that call for prompt action,” he said.

In reply to a question about water and air pollution levels, the minister acknowledged, “the situation is very bad and every eight out of 10 sources were contaminated, posing serious threats to people health.”

Answering a question about conversion of diesel vehicles to CNG, Mr Iqbal said, by the time around 300,000 petrol vehicles had been converted to CNG and the government was also looking into conversion of diesel vehicles to CNG.

He said Pakistan was on the top in the region in conversion of petrol vehicles to CNG and he had also asked the US Department of Energy during his recent visit to help convert the diesel vehicles into CNG, which costs Rs150,000 and has been the major hurdle. “But we are looking into it and soon will find a way out.”

The minister said Enercon and PAK-EPA had also prepared a programme to set up environmental safety and testing centres with the assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

The estimated cost of the project is Rs250 million and Jica experts were reviewing this proposal, he said. Initially Jica will set up a centre as pilot project, then the private sector’s help would be sought.

The programme is meant for helping the motor vehicle examiners, test the road worthiness and bringing private vehicles into testing net, he said, appropriate law would also be enacted to materialize this proposal.

He said pollution level in Pakistan was six times higher than the WHO standards that required to expand vegetation and grass cover along highways and in other areas causing pollution, he said.

He said sanguine projects were direly needed to check the travel of small particles from desert areas to cities as 60 per cent pollution impact comes from natural dust while 40 per cent is “man-made.”

In reply to a question about industrial pollution, the minister said, SMART programme was launched sometimes back to facilitate industries to assess themselves the pollution levels.

“Fifty industrial units have computerized their functioning to asses the pollution level and feedback in this regard was satisfactory,” he added.

Answering yet another question, the minister said, an outright action against the environment polluting industrial units like fining and closure can create unrest among workers.

The government wants to resolve this issue through confidence building and mutual understanding as an across-the-board action can also affect our exports, he said.

“We would facilitate them but they will also have to come on board to control pollution and secure a healthy future for the coming generations,” he added. “We are persuading them to use energy conservation boiler with an aim to save energy and control pollution.”

The minister said the government is ensuring that National Environmental Quality Standards are maintained in letter and spirit and the Environment Act is implemented in a way that industrial production is not affected and environmental needs are also met.

Mr Iqbal said implementation of Environmental Act as a whole may take some time. Some of its article have been implemented while federal and provincial governments were working to remove impediments on way to in its complete implementation.

Mr Iqbal said the government was also working on setting up small effluent treatment plants in the areas where small industries exist as the owners themselves might not be able to purchase such plants.

“Our priority is that one each plant is set up in the area where there are around ten small units so that the treatment cost minimises,” he added.

He said Asian Development Bank is also conducting a study on environment management with the cost of $1.2 million to look into possibility of setting up small effluent treatment centres.

“If this proposal materializes, it would pave way for $100 million loan to set up such plants,” he said.

Replying a question about environment tribunals, he said, two more tribunals would be set up with two already are working at Lahore and Karachi.

He said, Enercon would set up 50 more tune up centres during next one-and-a-half-year and this is duty of the owners to get their vehicles tuned up to save fuel energy and help control pollution.

He said initially 27 centres were set up with an average cost of Rs600,000 each and after seeing their performance we have planned more stations.

Maj Iqbal said, afforestation was on top of the agenda of his ministry as less forest areas and tree cutting trend was posing serious threats to forests as well as biodiversity.

He said the government has also proposed a Rs1.15 billion incentives programme for farmers covering next seven years to encourage tree plantation, check tree cutting and generate alternate fuel resources for them.

Mr Iqbal said he had sought assistance from private donors in the US and “their response to our problems was encouraging and we hope they will be joining hands with us.”

He said as the masses awareness was key to make any of these programme a success, the ministry is launching an awareness raising campaign focusing the grassroots.

Secretary environment, Javaid Zafar, additional secretary, Sheikh Ghazanfar, Pak-EPA director-general Asif Shuja Khan, Enercon managing-director Arif Alauddin, forests inspector-general Bashir Ahmed Wani, environments’ director-general Javed Ali Khan and other officials also accompanied the minister.