KARACHI, Sept 3: Despite strong reservations by the towns, the formula between them and the city government been worked out regarding outdoor advertizing, which has recently been transferred to the city government from the towns through amendment III of the SLGO-2001.
A meeting in this regard was held here on Tuesday in the city government’s head office at Civic Centre. It was presided over by the city nazim, while the DCO Karachi and all 18 Nazimeen and Naib Nazimeen of the city were in attendance.
The meeting acknowledged that amendments in the SLGO were made at the highest level, beyond the jurisdiction of the city government, and decided to form a committee headed by town nazimeen in each town comprising of the town officer concerned and a representative of the city nazim.
According to the verbal settlement between the town and city government, the towns will identify and monitor sites, collect revenues and deposit the amount in the account of the city government.
DCO Shafiq-ur-Rehman Paracha said the main reason for shifting of this responsibility from the towns to the city is to formulate and implement a centralized policy in this regard, which will eventually create parity at all the roads of Karachi.
He assured the town representatives that the city government will not attain a monopoly over the amount generated from this head, and the point of view of each town will always be respected by the city government.
Paracha said that the main agenda of this policy was to save footpaths for pedestrians and allocated sites according to the norms of advertizing, not at the wish of advertizers.
Responding to opposition from the towns, he said that the city government and towns are not separate from each other, and decisions would only be taken through consensus.
The new policy will improve revenue generation, as it was being felt by the higher authorities that towns could not perform up to potential in this field, he stated, adding that the city government is only a regulatory body under the new policy to ensure better performance.
He further said that under the new policy, all earmarked hoarding sites will be auctioned.
Naib Nazim Lyari Town Malik Mohammad Khan asked about the benefits of those towns having very little or no outdoor advertizing under the new policy, at which Paracha said that it will be decided by the distribution formula.
Various town nazimeen, including Fasihuddin of North Nazimabad, Dr Pervaiz Mehmood from Liaquatabad, Farooq Fariah of Saddar, Ahmed Parekh of Jamshed Town and Abdul Wahab of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town criticized the new amendment.
They informed in figures about the increase in revenue generation through outdoor advertizing after the formation of towns as compared to recovery from the same area during the tenure of the defunct DMCs.
They termed the amendments as a u-turn in the devolution process, and instead of giving more powers to the UCs, the towns were being made more financially dependent upon the city government. They also questioned the monitoring system and human resource availability in the city government that could control corruption in this regard, which was witnessed during the defunct KMA/DMCs days.
According to the amendment, all TMOs are directed to transfer the record of hoardings, billboards, sunshades, shop boards etc, to the city district government through their deputy town officer immediately, so that physical inspections could be carried out and any irregularities may be brought on record.
The district coordination officer of the city government may be requested to issue the directives in this regard.
The officers and staff to be transferred from all towns to the city government who are drawing their salaries from the budget of the respective towns, shall now be paid by the city district, for which the necessary budget allocations have been made.
