FAISALABAD, April 21: A controversy has cropped up between the communication and works department and the district governments over the issue of levying toll on roads.
According to sources, the Punjab C&W Department has taken notice of the reported decision of various district governments to impose toll on main roads, and made it clear that the district governments did not have the authority to impose toll on roads maintained by the provincial government.
The sources said almost all district governments were finding it difficult to run their day-to-day affairs and initiate development-oriented projects in their respective jurisdictions due to financial constraints.
District Nazims claim to have a limited scope for generating financial resources because they could only levy taxes on health, education and roads. All these services were directly linked to the public, and the district governments could not afford to annoy the people by enhancing the tuition fees of schools or the medical examination fee and other charges at health centres and hospitals.
Likewise, the major roads of districts are under the direct control of the respective tehsil municipal administrations.
Seeing no viable sources of income — the volume of traffic on roads in their jurisdiction being thin, the district governments reportedly decided to impose toll on all major roads connected to main highways like the GT Road, a majority of which are maintained by the Punjab government.
Taking notice of such decisions of the district governments, the Punjab government issued instructions to all superintending engineers of the highways department to explain as to why they had failed to take appropriate action against the district governments for levying toll on roads maintained by their department.
The directive said the district governments should not be allowed to use their funds for dualizing or improving roads or to levy any toll whatsoever. All SEs and the officials concerned found to have failed to restrict the district governments from imposing toll and making improvements in the roads belonging to the highways department would be taken to task.
The C&W department also refused to entertain the requests of district governments for transferring to them a number of roads connected with the Highways and falling within the urban limits of districts.
Various districts governments had imposed toll on main roads in the area within their jurisdiction. The C&W department, immediately after inception of the devolution plan, transferred 32,000km of roads to the district governments and retained only 8,000km.