FAISALABAD, Oct 6: The City District Government Faisalabad and town officials are engaged in a prolonged litigation over the issue of road commercialisation fee collection.

With the introduction of the city district governments, the Faisalabad, Multan, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala towns were deprived of the right to collect commercialisation fees. The charge of sanitation staff, too, was given to the CDGs which clipped more powers of the town authorities.

A committee, headed by the DCO, had been formed one year ago to approve any road commercialisation but not a single meeting has so far been arranged owing to alleged non-cooperation of the town officials.

Sources said the town officials also gave tough time to the DCO and other CDGF officials during meetings of another committee which had been delegated with the powers to approve the establishment of petrol pumps. They quoted the town representatives as saying that they had been directed to oppose any suggestion put up by the district government officials and that made the DCO to postpone the recently-held meeting, they said.

All four towns — Lyallpur, Jinnah, Iqbal and Madina — had joined hands against the CDGF and they had held a public gathering at the TMA complex two months ago to vent ire against the government officials. Some naib nazims even went to the extent of taking out a protest rally and pelting the vehicle of EDO (municipal services) with stones.

The police registered a case against four naib nazims, a councillor and some other officials.

Reports of tussles between the city district and town officials have also appeared in other parts of the province and the towns have moved the Lahore High Court to seek powers they had been deprived of.

According to sources, the town nazims had used naib nazims for filing petitions as they feared that their development funds could be freezed or legal action could be taken against them for challenging the Local Government Ordinance.

Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi has taken serious notice of the situation and asked all the city district governments to stop conversion of new roads for commercialisation.

A district government officer told this correspondent on the request of anonymity: “We have directed all departments concerned to stop the process of road conversion into commercialised thoroughfares.— Muhammad Saleem