FAISALABAD, July 1: The contractor of the tehsil municipal administration has allegedly misappropriated millions of rupees, which he had collected from the owners of the commercial properties in connivance with the tehsil Nazim.

Sources told this correspondent on Tuesday that the TMA’s contractor had received Rs6 million in the last week by offering incentives to the owners of commercial properties related to the commercialization fee and other adjunct levies in the last days of the financial year.

They claimed that the suspect had also received Rs4 million from a landlord to issue him a NOC for installing a CNG filling station here.

“However, not a penny has been deposited with the government treasury in violation of the agreement between the TMA and the contractor,” the sources alleged. They added that the municipal authorities had awarded the contract worth Rs17.6 million to a private firm for recovery of building fee, malba (rubble) fee, conversion fee and other commercialization fees of the buildings in the district.

According to an agreement, the contractor was bound not to get additional amount in case of any change in the commercialization policy as well as fees’ enhancement during the period of contract. The TMA had to be the sole beneficiary of this amount.

The provincial government, while changing the commercialization policy on Nov 25, 2002, enhanced the commercial fee for transfer of property, conversion cases, building fee and other levies, and asked the tehsil Nazim to make recovery accordingly. However, the contractor failed to deposit the additional amount with the government treasury due to alleged patronage of Tehsil Nazim Mumtaz Ali Cheema, they alleged.

The sources also claimed that after the publication of news items about Rs13 million appropriation in the TMA, the tehsil Nazim had been directed by the provincial authorities to take action against the contractor, but he did not do so.