Dr Imran Hamid Sheikh is a senior Pakistan Administrative Service Officer and the Director General, Environmental Protection Agency in Punjab province — a province of 130 million people and one of South Asia’s most pollution-stressed regions. His mandate has been to strengthen environmental governance through 3 systemic reforms: Establishing Pakistan’s first Environmental Protection Force to bridge the “law vs enforcement” gap and moving from reactive compliance to proactive monitoring; Leading digital transformation of environmental approvals, which involves shifting from a manual, opaque system to a fully digital, time-bound, and transparent process; Deploying global technology for real-time air and water quality monitoring, coupled with AI for targeted data gathering, predictive analytics, and evidence-based operations.
