RAWALPINDI: Three years after declaring 14 union councils of Potohar Town as urban areas, the provincial government has decided to collect property tax from the residents.

The 14 union councils of Potohar Town fall in the constituency of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

The residents of these union councils have not paid the property tax since 2014.

In July 2014, the Punjab government issued a notification declaring the 14 union councils of Potohar Town as urban areas.

After inclusion in urban areas in 2014, the residents of these UCs in Potohar Town have not paid the tax

After their inclusion in the urban areas, the residents of the 14 UCs were supposed to pay the property tax.

However, due to political intervention, they did not pay the tax till now.

The union councils are: Shakrial South, Shakrial North, Khana Dak, Gangal, Dhoke Munshi, Chaklala, Kotha Kalan, Lakhan, Chak Jalal Din, Morgah and Dhoke Chaudrian.

Soon after the notification, the water supply system was handed over to the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), which looks after urban areas, and was dished out funds for the improvement of the water supply system.

But the property tax was not collected from these areas. After receiving criticism from the residents of other areas of the city, the government decided to issue property tax challans to the residents.

However, it was not yet decided whether the arrears of the last three years would be collected from the residents or not.

Strangely, these union councils were declared urban but in the list of the Election Commission of Pakistan, the UCs are shown as rural areas of Rawalpindi district.

The local government elections in these union councils were held for the District Council instead of the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation – a civic body for the urban areas.

A senior official of City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) told Dawn that the ruling party politicians from these areas were against a campaign to collect property tax from these areas as they were involved in property business.

He said the areas were adjacent to the Chaklala cantonment and the residents of the cantonment were paying property taxes.

Due to this, he said, the price of property increased in the areas especially adjacent to Chaklala Scheme-III as the people preferred to buy property there due to the absence of taxes.

When contacted, Punjab Excise and Taxation Director Tanveer Gondal said the property tax challans had been issued to all the property owners in the urban union councils of Potohar Town.

He said September 30 was the last date to deposit the taxes and now the residents have to pay the taxes with a fine.

“A surcharge will be imposed on those who failed to pay the taxes within the deadline fixed for all the union councils of the city and urban union councils of the Potohar Town.”

He said the department had collected Rs480 million from city areas during the first quarter of the fiscal year which was 40pc of the total target.

He said a campaign would be launched to recover the property tax from urban areas.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2016