RAWALPINDI - Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has issued notices to the owners of residential buildings who are using them for commercial purpose.
About 50 notices have been issued to the beauty parlours and schools, which are being run in residential buildings illegally at High Court Road. Action will also be taken against a plaza, which has been built in Gulrez Housing Scheme. In the residential areas people have built larger houses and rented out them to the owners of beauty parlours and private schools. They receive about Rs 25000 rent from owners of the beauty parlours and Rs 50000 to Rs 100,000 from the private schools monthly but they don’t declare their buildings commercial to save taxes.
Meanwhile, the citizens have protested against overcharging of wagon and Suzuki fare by Rs 3 from stop to stop by owners of Toyota Hiace and Suzuki’s plying on different routes of the twin cities.
The wagon drivers have started charging minimum fare Rs 15 instead of Rs 12 from stop to stop on the route from Dhok Hafiiz Karal Chowk to Miran Abad, Fwara Chowk unilaterally while no notification has been issued by the transport authority in this regard. It is injustice with the commuters to charge fare at the rate of Rs 15 even for the distance which is less than one kilometre, said Gulzar Ahmad, a citizen.
“We have also been affected adversely by the hike in the prices of petroleum products but increase in fare by Rs 3 from stop to stop is a sheer tyranny,” said a group of schoolteachers.
On the other hand, Punjab government has not increased fares from 2010 but the wagon drivers are violating blatantly the fares fixed by the transport authority. The citizens demanded immediate stern action against unilateral increase in the fares of public transport by the owners of wagons and Suzuki drivers.