A couple of years back, the World Bank had asked Pakistan to take immediate measures to reduce the level of outdoor pollution to protect the health of its citizens from further damage.
But the country’s seriousness in fighting pollution could be gauged from the fact that its premier lab for air pollution sampling and analysis has not been operational for the last six years. A special grant of Rs18 million allocated for the lab’s revival in January also lapsed in June.
The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Central Laboratory for Environmental Analysis (CLEAN) was set up in Islamabad in 2007 at a cost of Rs713.3705 million with the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), but it has not been operational since 2010.
The facility, which aims to establish a basis for a nationwide analysis of environmental pollution and to enhance technical capacity of the environmental watchdog, consists of a main lab, an air and water lab, a stack emission data centre and a microbiological lab with equipment capable of testing industrial and municipal waste as well as air pollution. Equipment bought for the facility and sub-facilities has been gathering dust at the EPA’s head office and provincial stations. The equipment has not been used since the Ministry of Environment was devolved to the provinces in 2010.
The lax attitude of the EPA and climate ministry officials led to the lapse of the allocated sum.
On May 30, Climate Change Secretary Abu Ahmed Akif and EPA officials had claimed that the lab would be made functional within a week. When asked about the delay, he blamed the equipment supplier, saying “the supplier was not following procedural requirements for payment of cash”.
The secretary had also offered an odd observation on the system, asking, “Who would subscribe to the data even if we collect and release it.” “Without a comprehensive usage system, data generation is useless,” he had added.
“The collection of hard data is critical to effectively build a case and eventually solve the more complex and multi-faceted problems arising to environmental pollution,” said meteorologist and research scientist Dr Qamar Zaman while talking to The Express Tribune.
According to a report released by the World Bank in 2014, there is a stronger link between both indoor and outdoor air pollution exposure and cardiovascular diseases such as strokes and ischaemic heart disease, as well as between air pollution and cancer. This is in addition to air pollution’s role in the development of respiratory diseases, including acute respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases.
Climate Change Ministry’s Deputy Director Media and Communication Mohammad Saleem admitted that the country lacks latest data about outdoor air pollution.
“Inadequate government’s attention towards air quality management in the past is the main cause of gap for a reliable air quality data, which has held back policy measures to check the escalating level of the outdoor air pollution, considered to be a major cause of cancer deaths,” he said.
Saleem said that the climate ministry has recently launched a study to gather figures about national carbon emissions for automobiles and industry.
He explained that the data collected from the study would be used for policy measures to cope with the aggravating problem of outdoor air pollution and to introduce a mechanism to make industrial and transport sectors environment-friendly by introducing clean technologies.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 28th, 2016.
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