RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) on Tuesday raised Rs50 million from auctioning a contract for collecting fee from shopkeepers for sign boards on their shop.

Shopkeepers can install sign boards up to 20 feet long without having to pay a fee and will have to pay Rs15 per feet annually if the board is longer from next week onwards.

This fee was earlier collected by RCB officials and shopkeepers would often not pay it which is why it was decided to outsource the collection of fee for sign boards.

A senior RCB official told Dawn that the auction for fee collection was new and that the contractor will be bound to only collect the fee fixed by the civic body.

“This was started by the Chaklala Cantonment Board and after seeing the results of the experiment, the RCB also decided to implement this in the cantonment areas in its jurisdiction to earn money,” he said.

When asked, RCB spokesperson Qaiser Mehmood said the contract was awarded to a private firm and that this will hopefully improve fee collection. He said the RCB has fixed targets for the contractor as well.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2018