EDITORIAL: There are 195 countries and more than four million cities and towns in the world. And Lahore, the capital of Punjab and so-called heart of Pakistan, now has the dubious distinction of being the most polluted city, in terms of air quality, of them all.
Peshawar, not far behind, is at number-5, while as a country, Pakistan ranks number-3, behind Chad and Iraq. These statistics come from an annual global survey by a Swiss maker of air purifiers that measures air quality levels based on the concentration of lung-damaging airborne particles known as PM2.5.
It turns out that Lahore’s air quality index worsened from 86.5 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic metre in 2021 to 97.4 in 2022, exceeding WHO (World Health Organisation) guidelines by more than 10 times.
This means that the residents of one of the most important cities in the country are effectively breathing poison all day and night and the situation gets worse with every passing year with the government more unwilling than unable to do much about it. Punjab’s Environment Protection Department (EPD) was established to control pollution and has an excellent legal framework, according to experts.
But it’s never been able to function properly because it has neither the capacity nor properly trained human resource; a typical, chronic problem in almost all government departments. The World Bank-funded Punjab Green Development Programme (PGDP), worth a hefty $273 million, also failed because of the same reasons and an opportunity to strengthen environmental governance and promote green investments went begging.
Laws limiting vehicle emissions, which have been duly drafted, are also no good because they are never implemented.
It’s also cause for very serious concern that there are universities, albeit only a few, that have been churning out environmental engineers since at least 2009, and their degrees are accredited with the Washington Accord and recognised worldwide, but these graduates haven’t been able to land any jobs in EPD due to poor service rules.
And with constant transfers and postings of secretaries in the department, it’s just not been possible to make any headway. This, then, is just one more of those cases where corruption and paralysis in the official machinery is making people’s lives miserable, quite literally.
It’s bad enough that citizens of Lahore and Peshawar, just like all other cities in the country, have to bear unbearable cost of living for no fault of their own. Now they must endure their suffering while breathing extremely harmful air as well. Needless to say, of course, that for a country that already boasts alarming levels of malnutrition and stunting in infants, subjecting generation after generation to lung damaging particles is simply unacceptable.
This is one more area where we can learn from Bangladesh. In the last year alone it has improved its country rating by five points, proving that it is possible to make necessary changes provided that the political will to take such bulls by the horns exists.
Bangladesh has also made significant advances in the economic realm over the last half decade or so, diversifying production, increasing exports and adding to its foreign reserves; which proves that reforms are the only way out of a difficult situation.
Pakistani authorities need to wake up to this pollution disaster immediately. For, even if by some miracle it is able to overcome all its political and economic difficulties, it will do the people little good if their lungs are degraded because of a problem that not only should not have existed in the first place, but could have been addressed with proper planning.
Yet with the political elite completely consumed by the rush to grab or hold on to power, such issues might not make their way up the priority list anytime soon.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023