LAHORE: Minister for Environment Protection Department (EPD) Muhammad Rizwan has declared the city smog free while the Lahore commissioner has constituted five squads to check the smog.
The situation has confused the general public and environmentalists as they do not know whom to believe. Environmentalists were of the view that the EPD minister and the commissioner were not on one page, saying they should sit together on this issue.
EPD Minister Muhammad Rizwan while talking to The News said he was ready to prove his argument that ‘Lahore is smog-free’ at any forum. He said for the last two years there had not been a minute when the city was hit by smog.
To a question why the commissioner has constituted anti-smog squads if there was no smog, the minister said the commissioner didn’t know anything about the environment. He said the EPD has already made a committee on smog, which was working and there was no need to constitute special squads.
The minister claimed that smog was formed during fog and for the past two years there had been no fog. He said he was not denying that there was no air pollution in the city but he was just saying that the present situation didn’t come under the definition of smog.
The minister claimed that the government already warned private individuals and companies against issuing fake data of air quality of the city because this was harming the country’s reputation.
To a question that the US Consulate in Lahore was also issuing air quality data over which he said a team of EPA had already visited the US Consulate and inspected their air monitoring system.
The minister said the US Consulate’s monitor was collecting data from only one point (Shimla Hill) where there was always a traffic jam and air quality data of one point didn’t represent the overall quality of the city’s air. He said overall air quality was based on the average of air quality data collected from various points of the city. On the other hand, Commissioner Muhammad Usman has chaired a meeting at his camp office here on Saturday and passed several directions to the recently constituted five squads to combat smog.
Addressing the meeting, he said the squads would be comprised of officials of Environment, MCL, Wasa, police, district administration and other departments concerned.
DC Omer Sher Chatha has also issued a notification regarding the composition of the five squads and their TORs.
The commissioner said two teams will take action against smoky vehicles in the city. He said 305 factories were using boilers and furnaces in city and a special squad will seal the industrial units using substandard fuel or generating excessive smoke. He said a squad will check the status of pollution devices and ensure compliance of environmental laws and orders of the Judicial Commission.
Another squad will check use of substandard fuel and non-operative scrubbers and emission control measures in industry.
The commissioner said each squad must check 12 industrial units per day and 60 units per week and rotation would be ensured to check industries frequently. He said anyone who broke seal must be arrested to ensure writ of administration and such incident would not be tolerated.
He said all brick kilns should be shifted to zigzag technology and those who had already been shifted must be re-checked and revisited.