In a bid to protect environmental violators, the Punjab Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given free rein to the private laboratories found in preparing fake reports, Minute Mirror has learned.
The fraudulent practices of private laboratories were revealed during a first-ever audit report conducted by the EPA’s special team. The team submitted its reports in December 2020 after a six-month-long investigation and found that these laboratories fraudulently provided opportunities to thousands of polluter industrial units working in Punjab to continue their operations at the cost of the environment.
Sources informed that instead of revoking their certificates, the EPA is still accepting the different test reports prepared by such private laboratories. They said that such laboratories have also submitted their reports for renewal and extension in the parameters.
“Following the audit, EPA has left the matter unattended and, even after a year, no further periodic audit was conducted to monitor the working of such laboratories,” they added.
An EPA officer seeking anonymity informed that the matter pertaining to these laboratories had been in limbo due to the vested interests of some big wigs in the agency.
“Due to delay in taking action, these laboratories are still working in violation of the conditions of certificates they obtained from EPA,” he said, adding that even though these laboratories issued fake reports, EPA’s EIA section kept on issuing approval to different projects having baseline reports of these laboratories.
Besides EPA’s laboratories, at least 15 different private laboratories have obtained certificates to test the environmental samples of stack emissions, water quality and noise level in the province. The laboratories which were audited by EPA include Centre for Environment Protection Studies (CEPS), Environmental Laboratory, Solution Environmental Analysis Laboratory (SEAL), Asian Environmental Services (PVT) Ltd, HSE Services, WELCOS, Sustainable Environmental Services & Laboratory (SES), Green Engineering Consultant, Eco Global Environmental Lab, Environmental Services Pakistan, Green Crescent Environmental Consultants, Pak Green Enviro-Engineering (Pvt.) Limited, TTI Testing Laboratories, Asian Environmental Services (Pvt.) Limited and SGS Pakistan (Pvt.) Limited.
According to the findings of the probe team, all the laboratories remained busy in fraudulent practices in preparing fake and unrealistic environmental data of their clients’ businesses, in violation of the conditions mentioned in the EPA’s certificate. It was also observed during the audit that all laboratories performed tests above the permissible limit and even conducted tests of those parameters which they were not allowed to.
An official said that after completion of the audit, the EPA team submitted the report to Dr. Khurram Shahzad, the then EPA director-general, but he was transferred without taking any decision against such laboratories. He added that EPA could only issue show-cause notices to seven out of 12 laboratories upon which they submitted their replies.
“Not a single laboratory was able to submit a satisfactory reply which means EPA had no option left other than to revoke or suspend their certificates,” he said.
Environment Minister Muhammad Rizwan assured MinuteMirror that he would take action if anyone was found providing benefits to such laboratories. However, he cautioned that the process of action against the violator might be delayed due to transfer postings of DGs.
