FAISALABAD, June 9: Villagers of Pansera blocked the main road by erecting barricades and staged a demonstration against the imposition of toll on three roads of their area here on Friday.

Protesters, led by PML-N leader Muhammad Shahbaz Kissana and some elected representatives, chanted slogans against the district government and demanded immediate withdrawal of the toll from Pansera, Narwala and Millat roads.

They said the district government had to withdraw tolls on some dozen city and district roads during the last two financial years owing to strong protests by the people. The district government treated 100 villages of Pansera, Millat and Narwala roads stepmotherly and imposed the toll just to collect Rs7.7 million annually.

These areas had no industry or factory and only farmers were using these farm-to-market roads with their cash crops and belongings. Growers of these 100 villages were paying round-the-clock to the contractor on account of toll tax, they claimed.

The contractor, they claimed, was earning over Rs50 million annually and depositing only Rs7.7 million of the contract amount.

They said that they had been dispatching complaints to the city district nazim and the chief minister for the last couple of years, but to no avail.

Villagers had decided not to pay the toll from the next month while demonstrations would be held on busy roads to draw attention of the government to accept their genuine demands, they said.