Govt to put ‘polluter pays’ principle into effect
N its effort to implement the universal principle of polluter pays, the government is preparing to invest taxes collected from polluters to protect the environment from pollution.
The Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (MoSTE) is currently mulling over measures to utilise millions of rupees lying idle in the government treasury for more than six years. So far taxes on pollution have been collected under the government’s central revenue account.
Around Rs 2 billion raised in Polluter’s Tax in Kathmandu Valley since 2007 will be used to improve the city’s environment by investing in air quality monitoring and distribution of green stickers to vehicles that pass emission tests, among others, said Shankar Adhikari, spokesperson for the ministry.
If the MoSTE measures are implemented, for the first time the money paid for pollution control will be directly used to benefit the general public by improving the environment.
The government in 2007 decided to impose pollution tax of 50 paisa per litre of petrol and diesel consumed in the Valley. It is a general trend in the developed world to levy the tax as per the polluter pays principle since 2007. The levy on fossil fuel is being deposited in theEnvironment Protection Fund (EPF) under the Environment Protection Act 1996.
Though the Financial Act has it that pollution tax will be collected from petroleum products sold in the Valley and deposited in the EPF, the provision remained unimplemented for years, thanks to the poor infrastructure and inadequate human resource to formulate programmes and policies to that effect.
According to ministry officials, earlier it was not easy to access the fund as the ministry lacked a department to monitor air quality. “However, last year the government decided to have a department and now pollution control is its top priority,” Adhikari said.
Meanwhile, environment experts have again called on the authorities concerned to release the funds collected as pollution tax to prevent and control air pollution.
Toran Sharma, an environmentalist with the Nepal Environmental and Scientific Services, said that despite the fact that the Valley’s ambient air quality is deteriorating at an alarming rate, the authorities concerned have failed to come up with much needed measures to tackle this problem.