Vehicular emission is a major cause of environmental pollution: Col. (R) Shuja

Lahore: Provincial Minister for Environmental Protection, Col. (R) Shuja Khanzada has said that work on legislation to control vehicular emission has been started and installation of catalytic convertors in all vehicles and other retrofit devices like particle filters in diesel vehicles will be made compulsory for registration in Punjab.He stated this while presiding over a meeting regarding formulation of law to control emission. Secretary Environment Muhammad Anwar Rasheed was also present on the occasion.

The Minister said that vehicle registration conditions under practice in Punjab will be amended. He said that current approval list of specifications of vehicles will be reviewed and installation of catalytic convertors will be added.

The Minister said that vehicular emission is a major cause of environmental pollution. He said that after 18^th Amendment, it is the responsibility of provincial governments to take measures for making environment pollution-free. He said that government has chalked out a plan and work on it will be started very soon. He said that Lahore will be the focal point in the first phase of this programme.

The Minister said that in these efforts all stakeholders will be taken on board and a meeting will be called very soon. The representatives of Excise, Transport and Environment Departments, Pakistan Standards & Quality Control Authority and University of Engineering & Technology were also present in the meeting.