950823

MAP seminar on environment

Govt planning 500 LPG,

CNG stations to sell

lead-free fuel

AMANULLAH BASHAR

KARACHI: The federal government, as part of its efforts for environmental protection, has granted licences to the private sector for the establishment of 500 LPG and CNG filling stations to popularize lead-free fuel for automobiles all over the country, it is reliably learnt.

Three such gas stations have already gone into operation in Karachi at different points including Defence Housing Society, University Road and Lasbella roundabout.

In terms of price the CNG (compressed natural gas) costs almost one rupee per kilometre which is even less than half of the petroleum price. The CNG kit imported by the licence holder companies costs Rss. 14000 and it can be used in all types of vehicles. A vast majority of the yellow cabs plying on city roads, charging Rs.5 to Rs.6 per kilometre, have already switched over to CNG fuel, emitting no smoke like petrol run vehicles.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1995 in which July 1996 has been given as the deadline to the industrial and corporate sector to meet the environmental quality standards, has now started agitating the industrialists and the corporate sector.

Various issues relating to Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, specially the punitive clauses which emphasize arrests in case of violations of the rules, were discussed at length at a seminar organized by the Management Association of Pakistan (MAP) on "Corporate Sector and Environmental Responsibility" here on Wednesday.

Presided over by Shaukat Mirza, Chairman, MAP, the speakers at the seminar were Mehtab Akbar Rashdi, Director General Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Sindh, Kairas N. Kabraji and Saeed A. Mirza, Managing Director, Glaxo Laboratories. M. Salman Faruqui, Secretary, Environment and Urban Affairs Division, who was also one of the speakers, could not reach the venue due to some preoccupations.

The majority of the audience in the seminar were the representatives from multinational companies, who expressed their proposals and concerns about the implementation of the environmental control programme in Pakistan. Local participation from the industrial and corporate sector was completely missing and this fact was actually felt at the seminar.

Mehtab Rashdi said that August 30 had been fixed as the last date for submitting suggestions and proposals regarding environmental control from the private sector and regretted that so far a very few responses had been received. She urged the multinationals to come forward as role models by initiating measures for maintaining quality and standards for environmental protection.

Commenting on the draft of Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1995, the participants urged that the government must appoint knowledgeable and professional persons to the Council of Environmental Protection and at least 50 percent of them should belong to the private industrial, and business sectors.

The council should concern itself primarily with policy matters to ensure monitoring of enforcement through federal and provincial environment protection agencies.

The proposed powers to be vested with the federal and provincial agencies in the Act, it was feared, would be grossly misused leading to corruption, victimization and harassment. Therefore, these proposals should be deleted from the act, it was demanded.

The provision to recommend economic incentives including tax exemptions, subsidies and other allowances to help trade and industry achieve environmental objectives were, however, endorsed.

The Environment Act and monitoring agencies should be supportive, motivating and facilitating while the Act should not be overly punitive and the provisions in the Act for arrest without warrant, imprisonment should be removed, urged one of the speakers.