KARACHI, May 2: The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency chief has said that cases of 16 industrial units have been sent to the environmental tribunal for violating environmental laws over the past six months, while cases of 10 other industries are being processed and will soon be sent to the tribunal.

Notices had also been sent to as many as 3,000 industrial units over the six months directing them to follow environmental laws, Sepa chief Naeem Mughal said while giving an overview of the department’s performance at a meeting, which was chaired by Sindh Environment Minister Shaikh Afzal, on Monday.

He said that samples of emissions and effluents of over 140 industrial units had been collected and sent to labs for tests. The results showed that over 104 industrial units of them were violating environmental laws, he said, adding that personal hearings of 82 industries had been completed

The Sepa chief said that notices had also been sent to 170 industrial units directing them to get registered with a monitoring system so that their emissions and effluents could be examined.

Local govt, hospitals

Mr Mughal said that Sepa had also sent notices to 18 town administrations of the city as well as other district governments in the province directing them not to burn garbage in the open.

He said they had been instructed that garbage be disposed of in an environment-friendly way such as by dumping it at the landfill sites or other such areas designated for the purpose so that emissions and poisonous gases released due to burning did not pollute the air.

Besides, he said, 84 health facilities were also being monitored to find out if they were disposing of waste in accordance with environmental laws.

Speaking of the notices sent to over 3,000 industrial units across the province, he said that over 750 of these industrial units were located in the Federal B Area alone. In the notices, Sepa directed the industrial units to ensure that they followed environmental laws and national environment quality standards (NEQS).

Earlier, Sindh Environment Minister Shaikh Afzal said that stern action be taken against all those industrial units, which violated environmental laws or did not follow the NEQS, regardless of the fact who owned them.

He also directed the officials concerned that industrial units, health facilities and water supplying organisations be watched closely to ensure that they followed environmental laws. He added that legal action must be taken against them if they violated these laws.

Sindh Environment Secretary Mir Hussain Ali also spoke.