RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) reshuffled its tax branch officials after finding low tax recovery from Saddar, the main commercial hub of the cantonment areas.

RCB spokesman Qaisar Mehmood told Dawn that the RCB deployed a new team of two members in Saddar due to the low tax recovery from commercial plazas in the area.

He said the six-month tax recovery was reviewed at a meeting a few days ago and it was found that the tax recovery was low to meet the target. After this, he said, Cantonment Executive Officer Dr Saima Shah decided to appoint new officials who would speed up the tax recovery campaign.

He said the tax recovery target for the fiscal year 2017-18 was Rs350 million for all the 10 wards of the cantonment area. “Though 50pc amount has been collected, it is still behind the target,” he claimed.

Decision taken after officials failed to achieve target

On the other hand, a senior official of the RCB said the reshuffle in the tax branch was made on the pressure of elected members of the cantonment board who were against the tax recovery drive before April.

He said usually local residents and traders deposited the property tax in the last quarter of the fiscal year. But, he said, the RCB failed to generate revenue from the contracts of bus stands etc., to generate funds for meeting its daily expenses.

He said the RCB failed to recover property tax from defaulters for the last 10 years. He said there was resentment among traders over the way the drive was launched for tax recovery.

Rawalpindi Cantonment Traders Association President Zafar Qadri said traders in Saddar were not against the drive but they wanted the re-assessment of the property as more than 90pc shops in Saddar were on rent.

He said rent was used as the basic assessment to determine the value of a property but the RCB made a 30pc increase in the commercial property tax which was unfair.

“The elected members of the cantonment are in the building assessment committee and they favoured their near and dear ones. We elected the RCB members to solve the main problems of the local residents and the traders but they are toothless as the bureaucracy runs the affairs of the civic body,” he said.

“More than 79pc traders submitted property tax to the civic body but the tax collection teams threaten even those who had already paid the tax. The rental value of property is low compared to other areas,” he said.

He said despite collecting hefty amount of tax, the RCB failed to provide any facility to the traders and visitors in the main bazaars. “Traffic congestion forced citizens to avoid visiting the main commercial centre but the civic body has no plan to deal with the issue,” he said.

He said all footpaths were encroached by stallholders and shopkeepers while the anti-encroachment drive was launched only to mint money by the officials concerned.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2018