Environmental Protection Agency exercises its mandate under the Balochistan Envrionmental Protection Act 2012. While exercising this mandate, it has the crucial responsibility of ensuring environmental protection. So far since its inception as an Agency and until now, its performance has not been so satisfactory as it should have been when measured against the indicators and factors mentioned in the aforementioned Act.
This confession further other than making the picture disappointing makes it even more hopeful. The EPA is taking certain legal, procedural, policy measures which are aimed at affecting the mainframe of policy making. The inclusion of civil society, the recognition of role of academia and the freelance professionals’ alongwith an outreach strategy toward public mass awareness and sensitization are the few on the list of immediate doings.
In the regulatory role, the EPA is strictly ensuring the application of law on the ground and this has picked up momentum under spirited political leadership and equally inspiring leadership of Secretary Environment Mr. Abdul Saboor Kakar.
While all these are done and as initial observation revealed, the lack of data is one of the staggering features which has blinded the entire public sector in making wise, good and correct decisions. The system of governance does not provide for a system which ensures decision making. Where certain persons than systems make decisions, the output is never predictable and therefore never manageable.
This web portal is not a ceremonial celebration of yet another website. As time would prove, it would become one of the massively crowded and busy forum of guiding the policy towards integrating environmental protection in every action and policy.