Sher Afzal
KARACHI: The Sindh Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is stiffening monitoring of all federal, provincial and district government organizations are they of pure government, semi-government, civic authorities or autonomous bodies.
The monitoring framework of SEPA for industries and hospitals will also be expanded to each district of Sindh and no leniency will be exercised to polluters more particularly to serious violators of environmental laws of the province.
This was decided in a meeting held in the office of SEPA in Korangi Industrial Area under the chairmanship of Director General Naeem Ahmed Mughal and was attended by the in-charges of all district offices of the green watchdog.
Additional Director General Waqar Hussain Phulpoto and Director Karachi Region Ashique Ali Langah were also present on this occasion. In his opening remarks, DG SEPA Naeem Mughal said that in recent past the performance of SEPA has been quite good when nearly 250 polluting and illegal industrial and business entities were shut down on their open violations of Sindh Environmental Protection Act 2014 (SEP Act 2014) and more than 200 complains of different nature regarding environment were successfully disposed of off which shows the level of dedication and commitment to the organization.
He expressed his gratitude to Advisor to CM Sindh on Law, Environment, Climate Change and Coastal Development Barrister Murtuza Wahab whose unwavering support and guidance remained with the SEPA while performing its regulatory duties.
He further said that owing to a broad and diverse range of responsibilities assigned by SEP Act 2014, all the field offices need to work day and night to stop all types of environmental violations despite meager resources in terms of both finance and human capital.
He said that from now all field offices equally focus on monitoring of all types of government organizations and institutions engaged in any type of industrial, commercial or manufacturing activity be they are of federal, provincial or district government organizations working in Sindh.
“Our basic objective is to ensure compliance by all the organizations either private or public to ensure sustainable development in the province through pollution control and environmental protection”, he added.He further said that teams of fields’ offices should also expand their monitoring network to each district of Sindh despite resources shortage because we can’t compromise on performance on any excuse. He directed the field officers to send their daily progress reports to Head Office and contact him any time if they face any problem while performing their field duties.
Directing the focal person of Hospital Waste Management in Sindh Waqar Hussain Phulpoto Additional DG, he said that all his field teams should expedite the visits to all types of medical care establishments in all the regions of Sindh and get their daily progress reports and set their further targets on a daily basis.
The DG SEPA was of the view that special focus of monitoring should be on unauthorized industrial and commercial setups working in and around the residential areas which have miserably affected the nearby populations. More particularly brick and battery kilns and power looms working in residential areas should be dealt with iron hands and prompt action should be taken against them.
In the end, he asked the field officers and staff to remain vigilant while performing their duties as no lame excuse will be accepted and strict disciplinary action will be taken against lenient and lethargic officials.
