NATIONAL RESPONSES TO AIR POLLUTION PROBLEMS

Environmental legislation and regulations for pollution control are weak as are their implementation. The contemporary Acts and Regulation dealing to abate air pollution sources is not only very superficial but also lack of comprehensiveness vi-a versa coordination. Both Nepal Standard Act and Environment Protection Regulation are seeking to control air pollution by means of command and control approaches. But further working modalities are yet to publish (Devkota, 1999).There is no coherent legislative framework to control air pollution. Rather air pollution control is spread over various Acts. Moreover, regulations that govern the enforcement of laws have to be developed. Listed below are the various Acts where control measures for air pollution are mentioned.

  1. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990


    2. The Constitution envisages social, political and economic justice and protects the life, liberty and property of the citizens. Article 26(4) stipulates that the State shall give priority to the protection of environment and shall take special measures for preventing further damage due to physical development activities and shall also make special arrangement for the protection of rare wildlife, forest and vegetation. Similarly, Article 64 empowers the House of Representatives to constitute various committees like human right, natural resources, environment etc. But, natural resources and environment committee is ineffective compared to other committee.
     

  2. Civil Aviation Act, 1959


    3. Section 3(2)(3) of the Act empowers government frame regulations to regulate, prevent and control air pollution from aircraft’s. But HMG has neither framed regulations nor used the discretionary.
     

  3. Nepal Mines Act, 1996


    4. It provides special power to HMG to ensure that the mining activities are performed without jeopardizing the interest of the local people. The license is prohibited for the excavation mines within 50 meter from the places demarcated for public and national welfare. Despite of all this Godavari marble quarry has not been closed down even after public’s opposition regarding the serious negative effects of the mining activities.
     

  4. Nepal Petroleum Products Act, 1983


    5. Section 5(1) (b) stipulates petroleum works should be operated giving special consideration to security of life and property of people and without damaging forests, natural heritage and causing environmental pollution.
     

  5. Vehicles and Transport Management Act 1993
This Act has been enacted with a view to manage and regulate the traffic and provide convenient and effective transportation facilities to the public. Section14(1) has made compulsory to register any vehicle that is purchased or imported and 14(2) prohibits the use of vehicles without registration. Section 17 authorizes to test the vehicles according to the criteria prescribed under section 23 of the Act. This includes: According to this section 23, the government has set the emission standard to check vehicular emission in Kathmandu valley. The government specified (1) smoke density of diesel engine should not exceed 65 Hartridge smoke unit (HSU) and (2) CO emitted by petrol engine vehicles should not exceed 3 percent by volume. However this limit has been brought down to 75 HSU and 4.5 percent by volume (Nepal Rajpatra, 1994/1998). Green stickers are provided to those vehicles that pass the emission test. But still vehicles, which visibly emit black, smoke run in the streets with green stickers unhindered. Thus the government needs to curb all the malpractice in the transport sector.
  1. Industrial Enterprises Act,1992


    2. This Act grants a reduction of up to 50% on the taxable income of any industry invested in pollution minimization equipment or processes. It is still unclear why local industries are lagging behind in claiming this provision; so far not a single industry has taken advantage of this reduction, despite a number of industries having pollution control options. (Devkota, 1999).
     

  2. Environment Protection Act, 1996
The recently promulgated Environment Protection Act, 1996 and Environment Protection regulation 1997, are prototype of the command and control approach. The main thrusts of the Act and the Regulation are pollution control and environment assessment (EA). Regarding environmental pollution prevention and control, a pollution control permit system is conceived in the regulation. Further procedural approaches are still unclear, but according to the Environment Protection Regulations MOPE limit its activity to formulate the environmental standards, and the other concerned line agencies should execute them. A provision of a revolving fund for pollution control, environment, heritage conservation, awareness creation, research and award business exists in the regulation.

The government endorsed the National EIA guidelines 1993. Furthermore sectoral EIA guidelines for industry, forestry and water resources sector have been finalized and are being reinforced. EIA is also important in relation to clean air. With the passing of the Environment Protection Act 1996, EIA in Nepal is now legally mandatory.

Furthermore, there is several other legislation, which has provision for air pollution control, but these statues remain to be implemented effectively. These are Town Development, Act, 1988; Katmandu Valley Development Authority Act, 1988; Labor Act, 1991; Municipality Act, 1991; Pesticide Act, 1992; Industrial Enterprises Act, 1992; Water Resources Act, 1992; Electricity Act 1992; and Financial Act, 1993, NEPAP 1993.

In spite of all these the spirit of Environmental Act and Regulation seems deviating from the main tract because of lack of proper regulating agencies. For instance MoPE simply sets Rules and Regulations and is dependent upon the line Ministries to implement them. On the other hand line Ministries will try to implement with cautiously as it would not harm their primary objectives (Devkota, 1999). Thus, to check this disparity an independent environmental regulating agency should be established.

Air pollution is being increasingly recognized as a serious problem in Nepal, and with a view to dealing with this problem, various efforts have been undertaken. These efforts are expected to result in positive change in minimizing air pollution. Since mid-September 3-wheeler diesel tempo has been banned in the Valley. Instead of this the Government has made provision to import petrol microbus, which meets euro-1 standards. New registration of 3-wheeler diesel tempo has also been banned. Substantial addition of battery charged and LPG 3-wheelers has been introduced to fill the gap to meet the public transport demand.

Necessary steps from MoPE and Transport Ministry will be taking immediately to ban the new registration of two stroke vehicles and phase-out of such existing vehicles.

Taking in account of the Kathmandu valley road network tractors, truck, power tiller, lory and other heavy weight vehicles has been banned from 18th September to run inside the ring road from 8:00am to 7:00pm. Since 1998 petrol coming to the Valley has a low lead (0.02%) content. But in the western part of Nepal still leaded petrol is coming.
 
Sources Control option applied Abatement efficiency
Vehicular pollution Emission standard for petrol and diesel vehicles.

Ban new registration of diesel 3-wheeler.

Ban the existing diesel 3-wheeler that are plying in the Valley.

Introduction of low lead fuel.

Introduction of electric vehicles.

It has been made mandatory to the pollution prone industries to obtain license prior establishment or expansion. Licence for such industries would be given only after ensuring that they have no adverse impact on the environment. Industrial pollution control regulations have been drafted and EIA guidelines for industry sector and environment and risk assessment guidelines have been prepared.