Five factories told to stop working over law violations

The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) stopped five factories in North Karachi from working on Wednesday as they had been working without waste water treatment plants and committing other violations of the Sindh Environmental Protection Act 2014.

On directives issued by Sepa’s director general, the director regional office of Karachi has called the owners of the five factories located in North Karachi for a hearing at the Sepa Headquarters.

“Because all of them were discharging waste water and none of them has a waste water treatment plant and or an environmental NOC. Therefore, under Section 21(2) of the SEP Act, an environment protection order will be issued for them and they have been ordered to stop working immediately till compliance with the environmental law,” the official said. Action would also be taken against the rest of the factories, he said.