Kathmandu, November 18:

The Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MoEST) is launching the ‘Environment Auditing’ campaign to punish those industries and projects which have not shown due attention to the conservation of environment after the construction.

According to the Environment Projection Act 2053 BS, the firms are required to carry out studies on the impact on local environment before and after the construction of the projects.

The law has a provision to slap Rs 100,000 to those industries or projects which bypass the standards they had promised.

“We are carrying out an “environment auditing”, which will focus on cross-checking the impact of the industries on environment. We will punish those projects which are proved harmful to the local environment,” said Batu Krishna Upreti, chief of the Environment Assessment Section at the ministry.

He said most of the projects do not conduct post-project construction studies and even those which do so are not producing satisfactory results.

“For example, the Kali Gandaki Hydro-Electricity Project produced a report which says the project “is only 59 pre cent environment-friendly, 32 per cent partially-friendly and 10 per cent unfriendly,” he said.

He added that some projects even concealed the report, after conducting post-project construction studies.

The ministry, however, has not received any report on the environment auditing on other sectors except water and electricity.