City District Government Faisalabad (CDGF) has decided to shift four types of industries including textile processing, marble finishing units and foundries within a year from the industrial city.
City District Nazim Rana Zahid Tauseef disclosed this while presiding over a high level committee on World Environment Day at Circuit House Faisalabad here on Monday. He said that with a view to keeping the city neat and clean and pollution-free, the industries causing various types of pollution would be shift outside of the city within a year.
Zahid Tauseef added the water discharged by the Textile Processing and Dying Units spread on the roads and streets and causing problems for the citizen. So much so that water also makes the underground water inconsumable. He said that in the first phase, the programme had been made to shift textile processing, dying units, marble finishing industry and all types of foundries from the city.
City District Nazim also constituted five members' committee comprising DO Co-ordination Dr Tariq Sardar, DO Environment Mian Khalid Mehmood, Regional Chairman All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association Chaudhry Shabbir Ahmad and President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mian Muhammad Hanif. The committee would make arrangements for the shifting of industries from the city area.
Zahid Tauseef warned that strict action would be taken against the duty officers of Wasa if dirty water were seen standing on open spaces. He also directed DO Environment to take action against those factory owners who disposed their water/chemicals through bores in the ground.
In another function, agriculture experts stated that Faisalabad was faced with numerous challenges in the area of halting and reversing the environment degradation. There are sectoral gaps, capacity and knowledge that limited the rate of success of initiatives for pollution control and environmental protection and management. Amongst these, the issues of desertification, water quality and availability, and air quality stand out as the key environmental issues of concern.
In the water sector, they said Pakistan was faced with severe water shortages and water quality issues. The orientation of the water management institutions and experts was largely toward harnessing the resource in the service of economic growth, and not towards its conservation or quality. In addition, severe levels of water pollution and unchecked industrial pollutants being released in water bodies had added an 'immediate measure' status to water management issues. Similarly, although making headway in addressing ambient air quality in the country, Pakistan was struggling with ineffective air quality management systems.
Furthermore, there is no continuous monitoring station in the country and most of the data reported is obtained from mobile monitoring units or spontaneous on-site sampling with laboratories based results. A common issue for the lack of compliance to water and air quality monitoring and maintenance has been limited resources and persistent information gap.
Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Environment Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat while talking to journalists at Darbar Hafiz Dewan near Adda Kalri in Jhang, said that environmental pollution was a universal issue and concerted efforts were must to address it in an efficient manner.
He said that government of Pakistan had decided to increase forest area up to 10 percent of its total land. He urged direct public participation to increase the number of trees in the country. "Every individual must plant a tree every year as it will play a major role in arresting the environment pollution," he said. He said that government had also decided to provide potable water. In this connection, filtration plants would be installed at the union council level by the year 2007.
Faisal Saleh Hayat also inaugurated a metallic road from Adda Kalri to Popal Bhattah.
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