Chief Secretary Punjab Abdullah Khan Sumbal has directed the Environment Protection Department to finalize the framework to control air pollution (smog) at the earliest. He gave this directive while presiding over a meeting held to review the measures being taken to control smog, at the Civil Secretariat. The secretaries of relevant departments including local government, health, industries, and officers concerned attended the meeting while all the deputy commissioners participated through video link.
The Chief Secretary said that amendments in the environmental policy and the framework to control air pollution (smog) should be finalized in consultation with experts and stakeholders. He said that the measures taken to control the smog have yielded encouraging results and the situation is better than that of last year, but more work needs to be done. He hoped that the Punjab Green Development Program would prove useful in controlling environmental pollution in the province. He mentioned that work on farm mechanization is underway to prevent incidents of crop residue burning.
Secretary of Environment Protection Department Usman Ali Khan gave a detailed briefing at the meeting. He said that real-time monitoring of the air quality index is being done in Lahore. Due to timely action, there has been a clear reduction in the incidents of stubble burning. He said that in the last two months, 1521 industrial units causing environmental pollution in the province had been sealed, 1172 FIRs registered and fines of more than Rs 50 million had been imposed. In Lahore, 348 industrial units had been sealed and fines of more than Rs 22.6 million had been imposed. He said that 85000 inspections were carried out and 5755 smoke-emitting vehicles had been impounded and 29 cases had been registered over burning garbage.