LAHORE - The staff of Birth and Death Certificates department of City District Government Lahore (CDGL) has started exploiting the applicants by creating an artificial shortage of application forms, The Nation learnt on Tuesday. However, the officials of department are of the view that the stock of application forms ended a couple of days back due to extraordinary demand of such forms and in this regard they already have informed the higher authorities about the situation and demanded of more forms for the applicants. Moreover, the public pressure on the authorities concerned is mounting day by day, which is also irritating the officials of the department, while unavailability of application forms is causing massive nuisance among the applicants particularly for those who need such certificates on urgent basis. The CDGL insiders disclosed that some officials as well as hoarders of application forms are charging about Rs400 to Rs500 against per form and are minting money while CDGL authorities had fixed charges of per application form including fee at Rs100 only. A great rush of applicants can be witnessed in the office of the department who for getting application forms also seemed willing to pay more against per form and by taking advantage of their helplessness, some officials and the hoarders started black marketing of such forms, the insiders revealed. It was also witnessed that the applicants were shouting on the officials for not providing them application forms and also were blaming the officials for black marketing of such forms. Moreover a number of applicants have complained to the higher authorities of CDG, requesting them to initiate action against such officials involved in creating artificial shortage of forms. The insiders informed the scribe that authorities concerned promised the complainants to resolve the issue within a couple of days. District Coordination Officer Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta said that the issue of shortage of forms is not in his knowledge and any officer or authority concerned even did not inform him about the issue. However, he would take notice of shortage of such application forms by taking action against those involved in minting money by providing it in black, he added. He said provision of application forms would be ensured soon.