LAHORE: The government has approved a proposal seeking resource generation of the Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (Tepa) through imposing fees on various services.

The proposal, which was approved in a meeting of the Lahore Development Authority’s governing body, was floated by the Tepa administration and finance department, according to official sources.

Tepa is a self-financing agency but it has no regular source of income. The only source available is the department charges against the projects entrusted for execution. Now, the government has decided to stop providing department charges.

The proposal suggests imposition of Rs10,000 per year for vetting of temporary commercialisation and issue of a no-objection report under the traffic impact assessment (TIA) reports.

Similarly, Rs550,000 per job will be charged for the preparation of TIA reports and making it compulsory for the clients to get these from Tepa. “The completion certificate of commercial buildings should be issued after visits by Tepa staff for checking the parking provisions to ensure that they are as per approved TIA report. Similarly, Rs50,000 per agreement be charged for parking agreement fee”, reads the minutes.

Also, Rs5,000 will be charged against a case of a petrol pumps/retail outlets as processing fee. Up to Rs300,000 will be charged for an NOC letter against each case upon approval by the competent authority.

The cases of marking structure plan roads will be charged at the following rates: society/housing schemes/land sub-division Rs250,000 on up to 400 kanals, Rs500,000 for 400 to 800 kanals, Rs750,000 for more than 800 kanals, commercial building (shops, plazas, hospital, schools etc) Rs10,000 each, residential (one kanal and above) Rs5,000 each.

A traffic counts fee will be charged at following rates: four legs intersection Rs85,000, three legs intersection Rs65,000 and complex intersection Rs140,000. A 10 per cent increase in fee per year will be done.

For geometric design/geometric improvement cases, a fee will be charged for the design services provided by Tepa to different organisations/departments at following rates: design of four legs intersection Rs500,000, design of three legs intersection Rs400,000 and design of complex intersection Rs700,000.

For traffic circulation and parking design, a fee be charged the services for traffic circulation and parking design at following rates: Rs150 per square metre for topographic survey, Rs2 per Sqm of the design area be charged for parking and traffic circulation proposals.

Up Rs10,000 will be charged for granting permission to private organisations for installation of direction signboards. A Rs2,000 per Sqm area of sign boards be charged as a fee for the service rendered for designing of road signage.

A 0.25 percent of the construction cost will be charged from other departments as a fee for vetting and checking of estimates and grant of technical sanction by Tepa.

A 0.25% of construction cost will be charged from departments as a fee for checking and vetting of design. Tepa expects an estimated revenue generation of Rs33.990 million per annum. The proposal seeks re-structuring of Tepa through establishment of two wings - the urban development wing and the traffic engineering wing.

Tepa Director Admin & Finance Muhammad Irfan said the core objective of the proposal, which has been approved by the LDA’s governing body, was to make the agency a financially strong institution.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2017