Taking a clean and fresh breath is increasingly becoming impossible in most major cities of Pakistan including in Rawalpindi because of air pollution caused by an increasing number of vehicles and smoke-emitting factories and plants.
In winter, the situation becomes graver due to smog and air pollution.
The Punjab government has started to work on a project to install giant smog-free towers in all major cities including in Rawalpindi and Islamabad to suck smog and dust particles out of the air.
Officials said that an electrostatic field housed in a smog-free tower can pull 30,000 cubic meters of smog particles out of the air per hour.
According to the officials, these sucking towers are like “giant vacuum cleaners” that absorb the smog particles out of the air to provide up to 70 per cent clean air.
These smog-free towers will be installed in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and other most polluted cities of the province. These towers will be procured from China.
Sources in the Punjab Ministry of Environmental Protection said that the smog-free project has been prepared to control air pollution to ensure clean air for the people.
The sources said that work for installing these environmental-friendly smog free towers has been started.
Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Wasiq Qayyum said that air pollution in Punjab is exacerbated in winter due to the increasing pollution in Indian Punjab and Haryana, where farmers burn crops that enters Pakistan.
“We have developed a project to install smog-free towers in cities to provide clean air to the people. We are starting to implement the project in December. Initially, Rs300 million has been allocated for the project, which will be increased as per the requirement,” he said.
He said that these smog-free towers will be installed in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and Lahore in the first phase before they were installed in other more polluted cities.
In Punjab, he said up to 43 per cent of air pollution is caused by smoke-emitting vehicles. He said that the experiment of installing smog-free towers in China has remained successful. “Now we also want to take advantage of this experiment. Teams have also been formed to implement the Anti-Smog Act,” he said.
In the Rawalpindi district, 129 smoke-emitting vehicles have been removed from roads and 37 smoke-emitting factories and plants in Rawalpindi and 14 smoking-emitting kilns in the twin cities have been sealed, according to officials.
The Punjab government has rolled out a 10-point policy to control pollution, which will remain in force until further notice. Fines against smog emissions have also been increased.
Earlier, the Punjab government issued a notification banning the burning of all types of crops and garbage, smoke-emitting vehicles, factories, brick kilns and stone-crushing plants in all districts including in the Rawalpindi district.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2022.
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