RAWALPIND: Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) on Tuesday decided to end parking fee for vehicles on the main roads of Saddar and revise the size of signboards for which fee is charged from shopkeepers.

RCB had imposed Rs20 per motorcycle and Rs50 per car for an hour for parking on main roads of Saddar, including Adamjee Road, Bank Road, Haider Road, Kashmir Road, Mehfooz Road and The Mall last month.

It also imposed a fee on shops for signboards measuring more than 20 square feet in the cantonment board’s main commercial areas. The civic body had also increased property tax by 30pc in the cantonment areas.

Agrees to end parking fee in Saddar, charge traders for bigger signboards

However, the traders objected to these decisions and staged a protest on Kashmir Road on Monday against the RCB and gave it 72 hours to meet their demands.

After this, Station Commander Brig Shahzad Tanvir and RCB Cantonment Executive Officer Sibtain Raza on Tuesday invited office-bearers of the traders’ association for talks and decided to end parking fee but refused to end fee charged for signboards.

The traders agreed to pay the fee but demanded the civic body to charge for signboards measuringup to 60 square feet and also allow shopkeepers to install fibre glass boards in front of their shops.

The meeting also discussed the issue of property tax in detail and asked traders to pay taxes as it would be spent on the welfare of residents and also increase in business activities in the area.

The traders’ association leaders were of the view that they were ready to pay taxes but the civic body should conduct a survey of the rental value of the property in Saddar again and include traders’ representatives in the committee.

The RCB officials accepted their demand and decided that all decisions would be made after consultations with the traders’ representatives regarding commercial areas and the main bazaars of the cantonment areas.

When contacted, Cantonment Traders Association General Secretary Zafar Qadri said the RCB had called the meeting on Tuesday and decided to end the parking fee and take all decisions after consulting them.

“The traders and RCB will jointly deploy teams to stop double parking of vehicles on roadsides,” he said.

“We will pay fee for signboards measuring up to 60 square feet installed in front of shops. In the past, the RCB imposed fee on up to 20 square feet which was not acceptable to the traders as it was the right of the shopkeepers to install signboards carrying the name of the shop without paying any fee. However, if anyone wanted to install bigger signboards they he should pay the fee,” Mr Qadri said.

He said property tax was increased in the cantonment areas last year but the RCB wanted to imposed tax on the basis of rental value of the property without taking traders on board so we opposed it. However, he said the RCB decided to conduct a new survey of the area for rental value of the property.

When approached, RCB spokesman Qaiser Mehmood said the traders and RCB officials held a meeting and agreed to ‘postpone’ the parking fee and revise size of signboards on which a fee can be charged.

He said the civic body wanted to improve parking in Saddar - the main commercial hub - and in this regard, it decided to end the fee in the larger interest of the people while traders agreed to help the civic body to streamline matters.

He said property tax and other matters had been resolved after consultations, and the board would speed up work to collect property tax in commercial areas.

However, he said RCB’s recovery had improved in the current fiscal year as it collected Rs608 million from domestic and commercial properties against the target of Rs650 million while the target of water charges was set at Rs250 million and it managed to recover Rs180 million.

He said the targets would be achieved within a week’s time and it would be the best recovery in the last five years. The RCB was committed to achieving the target in the next fiscal year also, Mr Mehmood said.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2019