LAHORE: The Chief Secretary of Punjab, Abdullah Khan Sumbal, has ordered all relevant departments to accelerate their efforts to combat smog.
He made this directive while presiding over a meeting on smog control at the Civil Secretariat. The administrative secretaries of various departments, including environment protection, local government, industries, agriculture, transport, and health, as well as the deputy commissioners of Lahore and officers concerned, were present at the meeting, while the deputy commissioners of Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib, Kasur, Okara, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Hafizabad, Narowal, and Faisalabad participated via video link.
The Chief Secretary stated that the smog situation is better than it was a year ago, but there is still much work to be done to control environmental pollution. In addition, he issued directives to the Department of Environment Protection to hold consultations with all stakeholders, including civil society. He stated that the civic society's proposals would prove useful in preventing smog. In addition, the meeting voted to conduct inspections of all government cars.
The Secretary of the Environment Protection Department reported to the conference that in October, authorities sealed 1058 polluting industrial facilities, recorded 696 complaints, and issued fines above Rs 24 million.
In Lahore, the inspection teams sealed 583 industrial units, filed FIRs, and issued over Rs 34 million in fines. During the last two weeks, he claimed, 46,000 inspections were completed, and 3,168 vehicles that released smoke were confiscated. Similarly, twenty incidences of trash burning were reported in the past month. He stated that the smoke from crop wastes being burned over the border is impacting Lahore due to the wind direction.