LAHORE - Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has written a letter to Capt (R) Amarinder Singh, the Chief Minister of Indian Punjab.
In this letter, Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has invited Amarinder Singh to initiate regional cooperation arrangement to tackle the issue of smog as well as environmental pollution and asked him to join hands for securing a prosperous future for the people of both the provinces.
In his letter, Shehbaz said that since the last year, the people of Pakistani and Indian Punjabs had to face the problem of smog; however, the problem has aggravated and widespread this year.
“It goes without saying that the smog has an adverse impact on public health, especially in the old age and the children, on agriculture in the form of delayed sowing of wheat and damage to potato and other crops and causes traffic accidents.”
He said that main causes of smog ranged from vehicular and industrial emissions to rice stubble-burning.
“The phenomenon has now assumed regional proportions and it engulfs the areas from New Delhi to Lahore and beyond. This problem is essentially scientific and economic and cannot be tackled through other means. It is in the interest of the people of both the provinces to make a collective effort towards indentifying technologies and business methods that may eliminate the need to burn rice-stubble and help control smog formation. In this regard, both Pakistani and Indian Punjabs should adopt collective efforts to benefit the people of both the provinces,” he added.
