• Punjab govt has prepared “long-term plan” about smog: AGP
• Says task force has been formed in all districts to combat smog.
• People to be asked to contract marriages in October, he says.
  

After shutting schools, shifting half of the workforce at public offices to online mode and enforcing a complete ban on the entry of heavy vehicles, the Advocate General of Punjab (AGP) came up with a “unique idea” to tackle the hazardous smog situation in the province.

Outlining a “new smog mitigation policy”, the advocate general apprised the Lahore High Court that the government has prepared a long-term plan relating to smog. “Next year, people will be asked to contract marriages in October. They will be asked to avoid marriages in November, December and January [ to tackle smog].” 

The Punjab AG made the remarks as the LHC bench headed by Justice Shahid Karim resumed hearing a set of petitions filed for the mitigation of worsening smog in the province.

Presenting the government’s stance on the issue, the advocate general said that every department has been given a task in this regard.

“Smoke-emitting vehicles will not come on the roads now.”

At the outset of today’s hearing, the judge stated: “It was an important case. The government should have been present here. The government has not done anything yet and I am pointing it out daily.”

At this, the advocate general said that the government had formed a task force in all the districts to deal with the smog.

“Since, November 9, the government has locked [smoke-emitting] 100 buses.”

It is pertinent to mention here that Punjab, particularly Lahore, has been in the grip of a severe smog crisis since last month, with thick, toxic clouds now visible from space in striking satellite imagery by Nasa.

According to IQAir on Tuesday, Lahore was reported to have the most polluted air in the world. Punjab’s provincial capital topped the AQI list of the most polluted cities globally, with India’s New Delhi and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kinshasa ranking second and third, respectively.

Additionally, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has warned that the highly polluted air in Punjab poses severe risks to residents, including more than 11 million children under the age of five.

The cities of Lahore and Multan have been blanketed by the dark haze which engulfed streets and blocked buildings from view.

In Nasa’s satellite images, both the cities of Lahore and New Delhi are clearly visible shrouded in thick smog with no green cover.

“As smog continues to persist in Punjab province, I am extremely concerned about the well-being of young children who are forced to breathe polluted, toxic air,” Pakistan Unicef representative Abdullah Fadil said in a statement.

Each winter, pollution in this region ramps up with smog blanketing the whole atmosphere due to a combination of farmers burning agricultural waste, coal-fired power plants, traffic and windless days.

Officials in Lahore have deemed this season as unprecedented even though major South Asian cities suffer with poisonous smog each year.