The court ruling earlier this month followed a lawsuit by a Karachi man challenging the government’s failure to control air pollution in that port city. AIR POLLUTION DEATHS:According to a 2015 report published by the medical journal Lancet, nearly 22 per cent of annual deaths in Pakistan – or more than 310,000 each year – are caused by pollution, the majority of them due to air pollution. Since the court ruling, officials at the Pakistan Environmental Protection agency have said they are moving rapidly to comply. Saif Anjum, Punjab provincial environment secretary, said his agency also had installed six air quality monitoring units in Lahore, with 30 more being put in place. The units, along with an air quality action plan, “will help cut 50 per cent of air pollution in the next couple of years,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Source: Pakistan Today May 01, 2018 04:52 UTC