AS the smog season begins, Lahore offers the Punjab government the perfect laboratory to carry out another experiment to purify the polluted air. From road-washing and artificial rain in 2023 to installing a smog tower in 2024, this year it’s anti-smog guns aimed at clearing toxic particles from the atmosphere. The 15 guns, resembling cannons, work by turning water into fine mist — much like the electric steamers and nebulisers used at home — to ease congestion, but at a city scale.

Abid Omar, founder of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative, finds these anti-smog guns a criminal waste of resources. A ‘temporary’ measure, as expressed by Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, these guns cost over Rs45 million each, are mounted on a Rs18m truck, and guzzle up to 360,000 litres of water per truck. The Smog Mitigation Plan 2024-25 makes no mention of smog guns, raising questions about the origin of such ad hoc steps. As Lahore’s air quality hit hazardous levels last week, China’s (where the guns were first used) findings on the ineffectiveness of such measures against PM2.5 seemed validated.

The use of vast amounts of water strains Lahore’s already stressed resources. The city’s groundwater table is falling by an average of 0.8 metres annually — the highest among Punjab’s districts. Worse still, the guns mounted on diesel-fuelled trucks are powered by generators polluting the very air, they’re meant to clean. At a time when floods have caused monetary losses and every rupee counts, the government’s short-sighted, spendthrift ways seem foolhardy.

Despite weak implementation, Pakis­tan’s environment laws, in particular on air pollution, are impressive. Pakistan recognised air pollution in 1983 with the Pak­is­tan Environmental Protection Ordinance. By 1992, the National Conservation Stra­tegy identified pollution sources, and the 1997 Pakistan Environmental Protection Act empowered provinces to establish environmental protection agencies supported by tribunals. Statutory environment protection councils were also formed in each province and at the federal level but their role has been minimal.

It’s time to take on the big polluters.

In 2008, with the help of the Japan Int­ernational Cooperation Agency, Pakistan launched its first Clean Air Programme to tackle air pollution, setting up an air quality monitoring network. After JICA left, the project collapsed. The equipment was stored, the sensors were stolen, and trained consultants found work abroad. The Nat­io­nal Environmental Quality Standards, deve­­loped in 1993 and revised in 1999, were updated in 2010 to include standards for ambient air quality. Sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, suspended and fine particulate matter, lead and carbon monoxide were acknowledged as major pollutants.

Long before smog became the ‘fifth season’, the Lahore High Court in 2003 appointed a Lahore Clean Air Commission under Dr Parvez Hassan, senior advocate of the Supreme Court, who later also chaired the Supreme Court’s 2017 smog commission for Punjab. “Generally, the air pollution sources remain, the same today as they were in 2013 and 2017, as do the proposed remedial measures,” Dr Hassan told Dawn. To him, compliance and enforcement are the biggest challenges. Finding public announcements by the present political leadership “cosmetised and lou­der”, the once-eternal optimist remarked wearily, that the “gloom and doom of the common man, exposed to immeasurable health damages, continues”.

Yet, to its credit, the Punjab government has come a long way — from denying air pollution and blaming India to finally acknowledging the harsh reality of smog. It has gathered enough data and identified pollution sources and even came up with a Smog Mitigation Plan last year. Still, much work is required. Scientific input must guide policy not optics. In addition, it is time to take on big and more influential polluters — the transport, oil, cement and textile sectors that have remained above the law.

Among these, transport is a key challenge due to its high contribution to air pollution. Using portable remote sensing devices to measure real-time emissions of individual vehicles can be useful in enforcing emission-related laws when phasing out ageing, polluting vehicles becomes necessary. Still, banishing such vehicles may not be enough without improving fuel quality and ensuring engine fitness, attempts at which remain half-hearted. Pakistan needs to upgrade from Euro 2 fuel standard to at least Euro 5.

If Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz can bring lasting improvement to Lahore’s air by taking tough decisions on tackling emissions at source, it will be more than a victory over smog. Her government will be setting a precedent for effective environmental governance in Pakistan. Punjab can lead where others have merely talked.

The writer is an independent journalist based in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2025