October 20, 2003	Monday	Sha'aban 23, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, Oct 19: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) has collected a record amount of Rs70 million in property tax during its three month — July to September — recovery campaign, sources told Dawn.

Last year, the RCB had collected only Rs60 million. All those tax-payers who deposited their taxes during the first quarter would be given a 15 per cent rebate, while those who failed to deposit their house tax arrears till September 30 would be penalised in two ways: they would not be given the 15 per cent concession and would be served with notices to pay their taxes soon.

According to official sources, both the Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonments have about 80,000 property tax units — about 60,000 residential and 20,000 commercial. The statistics are, however, according to the old survey.

This shows the civic bodies have been losing millions of rupees every year due to their failure to keep an up-to-date record of its taxing units.

A cantonment official said a fresh survey was in the final stages of completion. “Ninety-five per cent of work on the survey on calculating the tax units has been completed and the remaining would be completed within a few months,” he added.

The whole cantonment has been divided into four categories — A,B,C,D — and each of the area is taxed on the basis of its location, provision of civic facilities and municipal services.

Category-A consists of all the posh areas, like Chaklala 1,2,3, Westridge 1,2,3, Peshawar Road lanes 1 to 7, Harley Street, Lalazar, Gulistan Colony, Roomi Road, Shami Road, and Tusla Road.

Category-B areas have comparatively less facilities than those in category-A, and are taxed accordingly. These include Chuhr Harpal, Lalkurti, Dheri Hassanabad, Gawalmandi, Misrial Road, Friends Colony.

Category-C contains localities like Tench Batta, Mughalabad, Kamalabad, Allama Iqbal Colony, Azizabad, Tahli Mori, R.A. Bazaar, Adhara, etc.