Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 11: Notwithstanding the fact that air pollution in the State is increasing with the increase in the number of vehicles and remains a matter of serious concern for one and all, the departments which are required to check fuel adulteration have not been fulfilling their duties on the pretext of lack of manpower and equipment. More interestingly, the environment management has not found a proper place in the planning of the State till date despite the fact that Jammu and Kashmir has already been declared as Air Pollution Control Zone under the Air (Prevention and Control) Act, 1981.
These observations have been made by the Committee on Environment of Legislative Assembly headed by CPM MLA, Mohd Yousaf Tarigami in its latest report.
“The transport sector has created a lot of problems as far as environment degradation is concerned as huge number of vehicles plying on roads are emitting heavy auto-mobile emission exhaust and posing a threat to the environment by way of polluting the air”, the Committee said, adding “though the Transport Department has started around 79 centers for checking the exhaust emissions, it has not purchased gas analyzers for petrol driven vehicles besides smoke meters till date”.
The Committee has also found that Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Department, which is required to check adulteration of fuel and fuel products, a main cause of air pollution, has no infrastructure and manpower for the purpose. The Department, however, puts the ball in the court of oil companies on the ground that as per the judgement of the High Court passed in the year 2005 the oil companies have been asked to check the fuel adulteration.
About the adulteration of fuel by adding kerosene oil, which is a common phenomenon as far as diesel vehicles like mini-buses, buses and trucks are concerned, the CAPD Department while admitting that leakages were observed on a large scale, told the Committee that during the allotment process it was not possible to detect where the adulteration was done but to check the tendency the department has evolved a mechanism where under the name of the allottee together with quota of kerosene allotted are being published by the respective Deputy Commissioners. However, the Committee expressed dis-satisfaction over the explanations given by the department and observed, “the checking mechanism adopted by the department is not at all effective and the same should be strengthened”.
“Though the Traffic Police Department admits that air and noise pollution are the outcome of the vehicular traffic and adulterated fuel is being used in the commercial vehicles, which in turn pollute the environment but it has shrugged its responsibility on the ground that department has very limited role as far as pollution control is concerned”, the Committee said, adding “even the department is not having required equipment like analyzers”.
Like CAPD Department, the Traffic Police has also put the ball in others’ court by conveying to the Committee on Environment that inter-department coordination was imperative for controlling the vehicular pollution. Moreover, the Traffic Police pleaded before the Committee to recommend the Government for providing equipment of latest technology for containing air and noise pollution.
The Committee has observed that the increased vehicular activities have become vicious as the vehicular exhaustion contains deadly gases of methane and carbon monoxide which are highly dangerous for human beings and also cause air pollution.
“The older vehicles are in fact a problem but not a major one, the big problem in fact is emissions generated by the fuel energy which is to be tackled by evolving a policy of using an alternate fuel like LPG or CNG”, the panel said.
About the coordination between the concerned departments, the Committee said, “the Environment Department has stated that the coordination amongst the concerned departments is poor from environmental point of view”, adding “though J&K stands declared as Air Pollution Control Zone under Section 19 of the Air (Prevention and Control) Act, 1981 but most of the departments know nothing about it”.
“Environment management has not found a proper place in the planning of the State as it has always remained in the short fall of equipments and manpower which requires a proper attention from the Government”, the panel said, adding “the Pollution Control Board has to ensure strict monitoring to be conducted by various departments involved in this sector from time to time”.
The Committee has suggested constitution of Coordination Committee which will go for random checking of the petrol pumps and samples analysis. It has also recommended that a deterrent mechanism should be put in place for effective role of checking centres and checking of adulteration of fuel.
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