Japan to assist in establishing environment-monitoring system

The Environment Ministry will establish environment-monitoring system with the financial assistance of the Japanese government.
A senior official in the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pepa) told Business Recorder, here.
The sources said the Japanese government would provide a grant of over Rs 1 billion against total estimated cost of the project (Rs 1.089 billion) for setting up air monitoring and warning stations to check air and water pollution in the country.
Initially, the Federal government had allocated around Rs 10 million in the budget 2004-05.
Apart from monetary support, Japan had also expressed its willingness to provide technical assistance for the air monitoring stations, the sources added.
Those stations would be set up in the federal capital and provincial capitals for surveillance and combating pollution in atmosphere and water.
The Pepa sources said that setting up of surveillance units in Peshawar, Lahore, Quetta, Karachi and Islamabad also part of the project in order to assess the pollution level in air and contamination ratio in water.
The project is the first-ever of its kind in developing countries like Pakistan, which would be completed in less than two years, he added.
Under the monitoring and surveillance system, the Pepa would be given a free hand to stop or divert the vehicular traffic if they feel the air pollution reached alarming proportions.
The concerned environmental agency would also have the powers to strictly implement the rules, set for maintaining the National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS), regarding installation of smoke treatment hoods in the industrial units or lead control, the sources added.
The agency would also compel the energy sector to introduce lead-free petrol and other POL products, besides promoting clean fuels including the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
The sources said: "Key factors contributing to air pollution in Pakistan are rapidly growing energy demand and fast growing transport sector. Air pollution levels in Pakistan's most populated cities are among the highest in the world."
The source also said the government had worked out a plan to introduce the CNG in Pakistan as an alternate transport fuel.
Currently, 500 CNG stations are providing the CNG to more than 450,000 vehicles all over the country. This has helped a lot in lowering the pollution level in many urban centers.
The government has planned to offer incentives to the investors to introduce the CNG buses in major cities of the country.
According to the World Bank report, Urban air pollution causes average annual damages of 369 million dollars to the national exchequer and is ranked as the second most important contributor after municipal solid and liquid wastes.