Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has devised a coordinated plan to curb the risks of sixth Smog season in the federal capital.
An EPA official told media that the plan was ready and would be submitted in the ministry of climate change for further endorsement. It would be shared with the general public and media consequently, he added.
She noted that the plan would focus on shutdown of brick kilns, controlled monitoring of industrial plants, hospital waste incinerators and vehicular emissions.
There was no issue of industrial emissions in the federal capital as almost all of the steel furnaces which were major source of smog and ambient pollution had installed carbon collecting technology to control dark emissions, she added.
However, she said around two re-rolling mills were emitting dark smoke who were called to work out a plan to control their emissions to avoid air pollution.
To a question on the letter written to ministry of interior to appoint vehicular examiners, she said the ministry had replied that the excise department was looking after the level of maintenance of big vehicles.
“The main issue was of light traffic vehicles entering from outside in the federal capital as no mechanism exists to monitor their emissions,” she informed.
Replying another query, she said EPA was working out a strategy to jointly start campaign with Islamabad Traffic Police for the monitoring of vehicular emissions. “EPA teams along with tailpipe emissions monitoring gadgets would measure the emissions of vehicles to control air pollution in the federal capital,” she added.
She told APP that all the hospitals had share the data of their incinerators and also maintenance record of their vehicles as well whereas most of the public and private departments were also complying their vehicles data with EPA.
