HYDERABAD, May 1: The district council here on Friday demanded that farmers of the Khesana Mori should be exempted from paying dhal and abiyana taxes as their standing crops on around 700 acres of land had been damaged by a breach in the Rohri Canal.

The council session adopted a resolution, tabled by M. Parkash, which said that the growers should also be compensated and provided agricultural loans.

The convener agreed that no measures had been taken so far to provide relief to the breach victims.

The session also adopted two other resolutions tabled by Mr Parkash. One of them pertained to notification of parking zones and timings in the city as it had been witnessed that on every street parking fees was being charged.

He said that even the Sindh Assembly had approved charging of parking fees only within office hours.

In the third resolution, he sought compensation for people, including the members of a minority community, whose houses had been gutted in the district.

He pointed out that funds for emergencies, allocated in the budget which, lapse if they were not utilised in such cases.

The session also demanded abolition of market committee check posts established by contractors and held that market committee fee should be paid by shopkeepers and brokers on the premises of the market.

A resolution to this effect, which was tabled by Azizullah Memon and adopted by the council session, said that contractors were forcibly recovering the fees from the farmers at illegal checkposts.

Babu Ramzan Arain and Abdul Karim Talpur supported the resolution and said that recovery of fee outside the market had been banned in Dadu district but such action had not been taken here.

Mr Arain demanded removal of the administrator of the Hyderabad market committee saying that he was encouraging contractors to recover the fee outside the market.

He said that brokers and shopkeepers were ready to pay the fee on the premises of the market where no facilities had been provided by the market committee though traders had contributed billions of rupees in taxes.

He said that it was being done despite statements of the provincial food minister and secretary that no checkposts should be set up for recovery of the fee.

The council decided to discuss with the DCO the issue of payment of rent of the buildings being used by the union councils.

Khushnud Ali Khan said that owners of the buildings were forcing the UC Nazims to pay dues. He said that if the rent amount was not being released by the district government, the nazims should be allowed to pay the rent from the UC funds.