LAHORE, Oct 18: The Punjab government is considering to revive the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and disbanding the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) because of its unsatisfactory performance since its establishment in 1996.
The EPD officials have already given two presentations to the governor to reinstate the post of the director-general necessary to revert the department to the status of an agency and also to separate its administrative staff from the technical staff. But no decision has so far been taken in this regard.
Sources say the EPD is preparing another presentation to be given to the governor in the next few weeks. “If the government revives the EPA, the administrative staff of the department will have to be merged with some other provincial department,” they say.
Major function of the EPD is to make arrangements to implement the Pakistan Environmental Act, 1997, and provide NOCs for the setting up of new industries in the province.
The environment law provides for the protection, conservation, rehabilitation and improvement of the environment by taking effective measures against the adverse environmental effects caused by the agricultural waste and air pollution, industrial effluents as well as to safeguard the biological diversity and ecosystem.
“The department has so far done nothing except observing the environmental day once a year since its inception,” an official said. “Policies are being made to protect the environment but no step has yet been taken to implement them,” he said. Besides no controls have been devised to make the industries comply with the law for the protection of environment. The poor performance shown by the department during the last many years is attributed by the officials to the shortage of staff for implementing the policies.
He said devolution of the department to the district level as a consequence of the new local government ordinance promulgated last year to devolve power at the local level had further complicated the things for the EPD, making it harder for it to actually enforce the policies.