RAWALPINDI: With the start of last quarter of fiscal year 2019-20, Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) has expedited the campaign to recover property tax and water charges in the cantonment areas and suspended two officials.

RCB Cantonment Executive Officer Sibtain Raza suspended Assistant Recovery Superintendent of Water Recovery Cell Yaseen Tahir Hamdum and Superintendent of Property Tax Cell Malik Naeem Iqbal.

He appointed Additional Cantonment Executive Officer Fahim Ali and RCB Secretary Qaiser Mehmood to monitor the recovery cell and Qaiser Abbas Naqvi as in charge of it.

For property tax, the RCB had set a target to recover Rs725 million from commercial and domestic units and Rs250 million for water charges.

However, the recovery of property tax reached 60pc while 68pc of water charges were recovered, Mr Raza told Dawn.

He said that Rs688 million was pending from Naseerabad and adjoining areas because of a dispute between Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) since many years.

He added that Rs1 billion in property tax was pending from Saddar because of a dispute between the owners and CDA.

When contacted, RCB spokesman Qaiser Mehmood said that recovery of property tax and water charges will be completed by end of June and suspension of water supply and sealing of property would be conducted in the next two months.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2020