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The biggest toll is the human cost: deaths due to burns and limbs amputated following injury. To make matters worse, the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency’s (Sepa) efforts to curb dumping have come to naught, partly because its officials have been allegedly on the take from factory owners. The Pakistan Environmental Protection Act of 1997 is a good piece of legislation and allows for penalties of up to Rs100,000 plus jail terms. Unfortunately it is not enforced, and hazardous waste is dumped in densely-populated areas and where children can gain easy access. What will it take for government agencies to take notice of the damage being done to the environment and to people’s lives by companies and act against them? A Hollywood film like Erin Brockovich highlighted the triumphant settlement of victims of improper waste water dumping — $333 million — in a direct action lawsuit in the US. But given the relatively low level of litigiousness and often delayed governmental injury-compensation here, perhaps the best way forward would be for the enforcing agency — Sepa in this case — to strictly implement the law and punish the polluters.
Published in the Express Tribune, May 19th, 2010.
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