The Advisor, who was here on a brief visit on Thursday to review the performance of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Office Sukkur, said this while addressing a press conference here at Circuit House.
He greatly appreciated the quality of environment in Indian capital New Delhi where despite the number of private and public vehicles reaching more than five million, the pollution level was low as all vehicles had been switched over to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) system. He also spoke high about the Underground Metro Train System, which was also being run by the CNG.
He deplored the EPA Sindh was under-staffed and compared to 450 environment scientists and expert technicians in India, there were only five to eight environment scientists in Pakistan.
The Advisor said that in most of the countries including India the vehicle licences and their fitness come under the jurisdiction of Transport Ministry rather than the Home Department which had been authorised in our provinces to deal with them.
He said he had taken up this issue with the relevant quarters, including the Sindh Chief Minister, and soon a decision will be taken to regulate the procedure of issuing licences and fitness certificates.
He said our cities were facing extreme hazard of air and water pollution, on which the world environment experts had already been giving us wake-up calls, and therefore underlined the need for equipping the EPA Sindh with sufficient authority, manpower and funds.
He said the EPA Sindh was studying a programme that could involve bilateral exchange of environment related information with the PCB, India, for which an initial talk was held by him in Agra with the PCB Chairman.
The Indian authorities were willing to sign a contract with the Sindh government through the federal government to manage transport and environmental issues, he stated.
He stated that Indian Bajaj CNG rickshaws had also been offered during the Agra Conference, and "this offer was also being considered by the EPA Sindh." Similarly, the Mitsubishi of Japan had also offered Sindh government its help in a number of environment projects on Built-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, he added.
He said the EPA Sindh would start a campaign against smoke-emitting vehicles and tanneries in Sindh after Eid-ul-Azha and the rickshaw operators would be forced to comply with the EPA laws, while the tanneries would not be allowed to run their trade without putting up treatment plants or else they would have to shift outside the city limits.
The Advisor said a proposal of providing water purification plants to districts of Hyderabad and Karachi had been okayed and hoped that would lead to improvement of the quality of drinking water.