ISLAMABAD: In an interesting development, Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has taken notice of the construction of a four-marla house in Bhara Kahu – a neighborhood near Islamabad – and termed it a violation of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 since construction work was started without securing the environmental approval.
Yasir Riaz son of Muhammad Riaz, who is a resident of Mango Town, has been served a notice in this connection by EPA and the construction of his house has been termed in violation of section 11/12 of Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997.
The person in question was also asked to appear for a personal hearing before the competent authority along with a written reply at a facility of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency in H-8/2 Islamabad.
It further warned the failure to appear in this reference shall be tantamount to legal action under the environmental protection act. Notice into this connection over four marlas plot was issued with the approval of Director General Pak-EPA.
This letter of the EPA came into the limelight on Monday during the meeting of the standing committee of the National Assembly on Climate Change in the Parliament House.
The meeting of the standing committee was about to end when Chairperson of the committee Munaza Hasan suddenly remembered a public petition about this matter and asked the petitioner Muhmmad Riaz to brief the members about it.
Riaz informed the committee that he had started constructing his house over four marla plot in Bhara Kahu when he was served with this notice.
The chairperson inquired from the DG EPA Farzana Altaf Shah whether her office visited the site before issuing notice to the petitioner.
The DG EPA admitted that no such visit was paid and maintained that she had learned that this project was being constructed on the sewerage drain. To it, the chair asked the DG to pay a visit to the site to evaluate the exact matter.
Earlier DG EPA while briefing the committee about the performance of the Pak-EPA said that her agency is understaffed as there is a working strengthen of 64 staff members while available strength in this reference is just 46. She said only seven personnel of officer grades are working in the agency while there is only one field inspector is available for 1,400 square km area of ICT with a population of approximately 2.2 million.
She said there is insufficient budgetary provision for operation and maintenance of clean laboratory, scientific equipment, field monitoring and research.
Moreover, she said lack of field security staff for any enforcement and compliance is another major issue with EPA as the regulatory body.
During briefing, the chair expressed her surprise over the fact that no expert has been hired yet by the agency. The chair maintained that EPA and the district administration should develop a mechanism to tackle security-related issues. She also recommended more budgetary allocation for the EPA.
The DG said that recruitment of grade 17 and above can only be made through Federal Public Service Commission. She was of the view that the agency can hire the required staff on contractual basis if the authorities concerned allow it.
Earlier the committee highly appreciated the efforts made by Pakistan during the recent years for Environmental Protection which were appreciated at international forums. The committee however, directed that Ministry of Climate Change may gave comprehensive briefing on the participation of Pakistan in 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) held in Glasgow from 31 October to 13 November, 2021 along-with detail of delegation in the next meeting.
The committee expressed concern that Pak-EPA was unable to play an impressive role due to lack of manpower, Infrastructure and allocation of budget. The committee, therefore, directed that the ministry of Climate Change may come up with the proposals to provide missing facilities to Pak-EPA so that committee could take them at appropriate forum for their amicable solution in order to achieve the targets set by the government.
Zartaj Gul, Minister of State Climate Change briefly apprised the committee about the efforts made by them to enhance the performance of their ministry and problems faced by them in this regard. She apprised that government is fully committed to curtail unnecessary expenditures especially in terms of TA/DA as they never visited abroad on government expense.
