MANSEHRA, May 23: Hundreds of traders, shopkeepers and transporters marched on the city roads on Wednesday to register their protest and reached the Tehsil Municipal Administration secretariat to file their objections to imposition of new taxes and licence fee proposed by the TMA.

New taxes and licence fee, ranging from Rs50 to Rs 50,000, have been proposed by the TMA on business, including shops, kiosks, carts, on water rate, property and cattle markets.

The decision on the imposition of the taxes will be taken in a meeting of the Tehsil council on May 30 and the people have been asked to file their objections in this regard.

Markazi Anjuman-i-Tajiran President Shaikh Iqbal Hussain, Vice-President Mohammad Khalid Saraf and General Secretary Mohammad Fiyyaz Sulehriya, Shaukat Ali Tanoli, president of Kashmir Road traders body, and Syed Ali Ahmad Shah, president of the ladies’ shopping centres of the Kashmiri Bazaar and Khalla Bazaar, filed their objections and presented their views before the committee constituted by the Tehsil Nazim.

They said that the decision should not be taken without taking all the traders into confidence. They said the TMA had never come up to their expectations for solving their problems.

They threatened that they would launch a movement against the TMA if the schedule of new taxes was not withdrawn.

They regretted that the Tehsil Nazim and the TMA authorities had been given the wrong advice of imposition of new taxes by the opponents of the new system of governance.

They said the traders and shopkeepers were already paying heavy taxes to the TMA and there was no justification for imposition of new taxes. In return, they said, the TMA had failed in providing them even the basic amenities like potable water, clean and healthy environment, public latrines, streetlights and construction of roads.

They said the unprecedented price hike, market slump and presence of thousands of Afghan refugees had spoiled the business atmosphere of the area and imposition of new taxes would add to the miseries of the business community.

They said the Tehsil was bearing the burden of more than 300,000 refugees. They were running all sorts of business, shop and kiosk and all the footpaths in the markets were occupied by the Afghan refugees, who paid no tax, they alleged.

They said the TMA had acquired the old government transport service bus stand for the wagons but the refugees were parking their carts there.

They urged the TMA to explore other sources for generation of income and not to burden the traders.