The Punjab Environmental Protection Department has rolled out Pakistan’s first aerial environmental monitoring system through a drone-based company under the “Hawk Eye Project”, led by Director General Imran Hamid Sheikh.
This initiative uses thermal-equipped drones and a trained GIS team to track pollution sources and monitor staff performance in real time. As part of this project, all industries and brick kilns in Punjab are being digitally mapped to boost enforcement.
In its first operation, the GIS team spotted three pyrolysis plants operating in Lahore’s Mehmood Booti area, along with four more industrial units and a site filled with hundreds of carbon-filled sacks, raising serious environmental concerns.
The DG is now seeking answers from the local field office over these findings. Officials view this drone-based oversight as a game-changer for environmental governance in the region.
Calling it a “defining moment,” Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz praised the launch of the smart environmental force as a bold move toward a greener, climate-resilient future.
“Equipped with drone surveillance, real-time AQI monitors, mobile labs, and specialised squads across key sectors, industry, water, plastic, agriculture, transport, and fuel, this pioneering Force is committed to rapid response, accurate enforcement, and sustained air quality improvement,” she shared on ‘X’.