Over the years, Peshawar has emerged as one of the thickly populated urban centers of the country. Concentration of educational opportunities, career prospects, rural to urban migration and Afghan refugees has created serious problems of housing, sewerage, sanitation, transport and environment. For the multitude of citizens in the city, there is need for a mass transport system. However, the present system is far from being satisfactory. In this situation, auto rickshaw provides an alternative and cheap mean of communication to majority of people in Peshawar. There are approximately sixteen thousand auto rickshaws in Peshawar; half of them are registered with the excise and taxation department.

In one of IUCN round tables in 1997, GEF mentioned about the issue of air and noise pollution in Peshawar and requested an action plan to control the pollution. Consequently IUCN called multi-stakeholders meeting with representatives from NGOs, rickshaw drivers, automobile engineers, politicians and Environmental Protection Agency, in October 1997. The meeting discussed the issue in detail and listened to the viewpoint of each stakeholder. Resultantly IUCN and stakeholders agreed on a plan for keeping the city clean from noise and air pollution. The plan has many components; the control on vehicular emissions from auto rickshaws is one of them.
On experimental basis a three months pilot project has been started. As a first step, with the technical assistance of a local denter, IUCN has developed a specially designed silencer, which would help in reducing air and sound pollution. This silencer is being installed in a select number of auto rickshaws.