ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA), adopting measures for better atmosphere, plans to establish a ‘Geomatic Center’ for environment monitoring data base development in Islamabad.
Protection of environment is a continuous phenomenon; however, during tenure of present government, some of the important programmes at the federal level are being pursued.
Sources at Climate Change Division on Tuesday listed some major steps, taken for protection of environment in Islamabad and these are survey and monitoring of industries, hospitals, pathological laboratories and revitalization of dysfunctional monitoring stations and Central Laboratory for Environmental Analysis and Networking (CLEAN) laboratory.
They said the other steps are post environmental approval and monitoring of upcoming projects as more than 10 project sites have been visited by team of Pak-EPA, identification of new development projects and housing schemes which are in violation of Section-12 of Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (PEPA) 1997, 24 Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) and 12 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) received for review are under process.
The sources also highlighted some other measures including initiation of legal process against alleged violators of PEPA, 1997as 12 Environmental Protection Orders (EPOS) and five fresh cases forwarded to Environmental Protection Tribunal (EPT), Islamabad, mobilization of foreign funding for centralized facility for hazardous and hospital waste management and disposal is under active consideration and establishment of the CLEAN Environment Fund andits registration with the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan for mobilization of resources for research, studies, modeling and technology testing for controlling environment pollution in ICT.
The sources said revision of Environment Protection Act, 1997and its rules is another step while Rawal Lake pollution control programme through decentralized sewage treatment plants is also in process.
Experts estimate that environmental degradation may cost Pakistan’s economy over Rs. 365 billion every year, of which inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene accounts for Rs.112 billion, agriculture soil degradation Rs.70 billion, indoor pollution Rs. 67 billion, urban air pollution Rs. 65 billion, lead exposure Rs. 45 billion and rangeland degradation and deforestation Rs. 6 billion.
