Waste dumping: EPD asks Irrigation to line Hadyara drain

Irrigation Dept says doesn’t have the money for lining project.

LAHORE:

The Environment Protection Department (EPD) has asked the Irrigation Department to line the base of Hadyara drain, but the latter says it does not have the funds for it, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The issue was discussed at a meeting called by the EPD to resolve the dumping of waste into the Hadyara and Charrar drains, said officials that attended. Irrigation officials responded to EPD secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiana’s suggestion that they line the drain by saying that the department had limited funds that it was using to build a waste treatment plant, at a location to be disclosed at a later meeting.

Also at the meeting, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry convenor for the environment Agha Saiddain urged the EPD to advise the government to lower National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS), arguing that they were too strict for a country of Pakistan’s GDP. He said they were set without consultation with industrialists.

The EPD secretary urged Saiddain to press LCCI members to build waste treatment plants. The LCCI in turn pressed the EPD to build landfill sites where industries could dump their solid waste.

According to the EPD, 58 factories and 15 housing schemes dump untreated waste into Hadyara drain, which eventually flows into the Ravi.

Environment Protection Agency Director General Shagufta Shahjehan, Quaid-i-Azam Industrial Estate secretary Major SH Rizvi, DHA director Col Fayyaz, the Water and Sanitation Agency deputy managing director, and two Irrigation Department engineers also attended the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2011.