“The procedure and criteria has been designed to ensure that the environmental consultants have the relevant qualification and experience in the field of environmental sciences required to conduct an environmental study.” PHOTO: EPA
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) is setting new criteria for registration of consultant firms to carry out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) studies in the future.
“The Pak-EPA has developed a new procedure for registration of environmental consultants including individuals, organisations, and subject specialists in order to improve the quality of IEE/EIA reports,” EPA Director General Dr Khursheed Khan told The Express Tribune. He said the registration procedure will soon be wrapped up after taking all stakeholders on board.
“The procedure and criteria has been designed to ensure that the environmental consultants have the relevant qualification and experience in the field of environmental sciences required to conduct an environmental study,” he said, adding that the new criteria will lead to a significant improvement in the quality of EIA and IEE reports.
“We will register environmental consultants such as engineering firms and other firms which will meet the Pak-EPA consultation criteria before they are allowed to conduct studies on new projects,” Khan said.
The Pak-EPA will provide the list of the registered consultant firms to proponents (project-carriers) before issuing them no-objection certificates to carry out development of projects.
“It will be helpful for preparing quality EIA and IEE reports. Currently, almost a single consultant firm, which has no required experience in environmental sciences, is preparing the EIA and IEE reports of civil, electrical and mechanical projects.
Under the new criteria, individual members must have a master’s degree in the relevant field with at least six years of working experiences or a PhD degree with three years of working experience in EIA work or he or she should be involved in EIA studies on a regular basis.
And for registration for the environmental consultant firms, they must have formal EIA training evidence, a portfolio of work with five previous complete EIA reports, besides having sufficient understanding of EIA processes including scoping, screening, impact assessment, mitigating measures, report writing etc.
Moreover, all members must have adequate knowledge of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997, IEE/ EIA Regulations, 2000, EIA guidelines and all other related national legal instruments etc.
Similarly, the project proponents will carefully select an environmental consultant and the selection will be based on competency and experience of the consultant.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 8th, 2015.
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