BY Zulqernain Tahir
LAHORE, March 10: At least 1,500 trees, mostly of fruit, will be uprooted during the construction of the Jinnah and Doctor's hospitals' underpasses along the Lahore Canal.

Like the Mall Road and FC College underpasses, which were built without assessing their impact, no environment impact assessment (EIA) has been done by the Communication and Works department in this case either.

A case has been pending with the Environmental Protection Tribunal (Lahore) against the construction of the Mall and FC College underpasses that resulted in the cutting of more than 1,100 trees along the canal.

Non-compliance of the EIA rules of the Pakistan Environment Protection Act, 1997, is causing fast degradation of environment, especially in the Punjab. The EIA is an environmental study and formulation of environmental management of a project.

Its purpose is to evaluate the environmental and related social implications of carrying out a development project of any size before irrevocable decision are made. It also provides alternatives to carry out the project in case it has adverse effects on environment.

The Environment Protection Department, which is an executing agency of the EIA rules in the province, does not even dare to send legal notices to the government departments violating the environmental laws for long.

The tall claim of the environment ministry that it will not allow any government department and the private sector, especially the industrial one, to launch a project without the NoC from the EPD have proved mere statement.

The C&W department had claimed that it would plant trees along the canal after the completion of the two underpasses, but nothing has been done so far. Environment advocates were of the view that the excavation and dumping of earth in such projects were carried out without adopting safety and preventive measures, thus causing air pollution and inconvenience to the adjoining localities.

They said the departments concerned were deliberately violating the mandatory provisions of the environmental laws of the land. They said the EPD did not develop any system to press the violators to abide by law.

Not a single case had been registered with the Environment Tribunal under section 12 of PEPA, which made it mandatory for the public and private sectors to get their projects approved under the EIA.

The EPD officials cited lack of resources as the main reason for the poor implementation of the environment laws.

 The DAWN