One year after, it is Nov 2023, and see what’s happening in addition to school holidays and lockdowns due to zero-visibility smog:

Living in Lahore for 1 year decreases life expectancy by 6 years!
Sources:
https://propakistani.pk/2023/11/07/you-will-die-7-years-earlier-if-you-live-in-lahore-for-a-year-american-research/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1gkcVxd3UI

These reports’ basis is this one from 2019: https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Pakistan-Report.pdf

So what is happening about it in Lahore the city of gardens?

Punjab: Crackdown Against Smoke-Emitting Carshttps://www.pakwheels.com/blog/punjab-crackdown-against-smoke-emitting-cars/
Omar Faruq
Nov 13, 2023

Let’s dissect this news:

1] So the authorities are seizing vehicles – then what? Do they make alterations to the engines and emissions control systems before releasing them back? Or are the clunkers sent permanently to the crusher? Or the vehicles just pay a fine and come back on the roads?

2] “Additionally, the Punjab Transport Authority Enforcement Wing is taking stringent measures against vehicles affiliated with private schools, colleges, and universities.”
This is how our nation hates education. Paying less attention to the major industrial, commercial and agricultural polluters, they chose to target educational institutions’ vehicles. Why?

3] “Minister Murad highlighted motorcycles as the primary contributors to pollution” but paradoxically “unlike other impounded vehicles, motorcyclists, primarily from the labor class, receive only fines and warnings“.
Communism is still ruling the policy-makers mindset. Working class gets a free pass on all anti-social actions. Most probably the traffic police is targeting truck drivers because even they are poor (the truck owner is not poor but the driver definitely is), they are easier to extract money from. We have all seen our national behaviour towards the commercial vehicles.

Neither have the successive governments been able to force the oil refineries to meet the deadline of producing Euro 5 fuel, neither have they been able to force the automakers to produce Euro 5 compliant vehicles. 2/3-wheelers are the biggest polluters even if the engine is in a good condition, the reason is that Euro 2 for motorcycles is much lenient than Euro 2 for 4-wheelers and upwards (details on it here https://carspiritpk.com/blame-where-the-blame-is-due/#comment-8045). Strangely there is no observation that the tractor-makers are also obliged to bring their offerings up-to-par with Euro5 or above. Punjab is big on agriculture yet this one large source of emissions goes unnoticed.

The level of hypocrisy is that their is no focus on calling out the big government-owned businesses and big private businesses and high-ranking government officials for their social responsibility. Yet the weakest parts of the food chain, the traffic police foot constable and road users are somehow responsible for cooperating with each other to fight the behemoth of pollution.
Isn’t this comical situation itself deserving of mockery?

Yet the automobile industry as well as fuel producers cannot be bothered to upgrade to low-emissions vehicles and low-emissions fuels early enough.

In 2021, it was chosen that only Euro 5 fuel shall be sold in Lahore. Only God knows what happened to that proposal!

Lahore is the city of Gardens. Actually Euro 7 cannot come sooner! Shift all these 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, 4-wheelers, 6-wheelers, up to 192- and 212-wheelers to Euro 7 quickly! Every crisis is an opportunity, Lahore can be taken as the pilot project for emissions reduction and later on the scope must be expanded to whole of Pakistan.

13 Mar 2023: https://carspiritpk.com/byd-faw-chery-joins-price-war-in-chinese-car-market/

23 Dec 2021: https://carspiritpk.com/blame-where-the-blame-is-due/

08 Jul 2022: https://carspiritpk.com/two-years-and-still-no-euro-5-cars/

18 Mar 2022: https://carspiritpk.com/euro-2-in-pakistan-a-decade/

The article is all-encompassing – a very good effort!

Just to remember last year Punjab Govt announced that in Lahore only the Euro 5 fuel will be sold https://www.pakwheels.com/blog/air-pollution-alert-no-more-euro-2-fuel-in-lahore/ however even in the last season (Nov 2021-Feb 2022) in Lahore not only the Euro 2 was freely available, in fact it was the one only available. The situation related to “only Euro 5 to be imported” seems to have died down completely, not only in Lahore but the whole country in general.

As you know the Euro 5 fuels were marketed at a higher price and with different brand names compared to the routine Euro 2, fuel stations had separate dispensers for Euro 5 petrol and Euro V diesel, but not anymore. The higher priced fuel is not even available anymore even when customers were happy to pay higher cost because in general it gave better fuel economy too.