ISLAMABAD - The residents of the capital city will have to pay money to keep their streets clean as the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad has decided to impose sanitation charges on Monday.
The session of the house of MCI was held at Pak-China Friendship Centre under the chair of the Mayor of Islamabad Sheikh Ansar Aziz.
According to documents presented in the house, all government and private houses will have to pay the sanitation charges that range between Rs200 to Rs1,000 according to their categories.
The high-rise apartment buildings will also have to pay Rs3 per square feet while the commercial areas will also be charged according to their covered area.
Similarly, the farmhouses, marquees, hotels and educational institutions would also be charged according to their total covered area.
Deputy Mayor Syed Zeshan Naqvi, who was also the chairman of a committee constituted to deliberate upon the imposition of sanitation charges in Islamabad, shared the findings of said committee in the house.
He said that since the creation of MCI, the Directorate of Sanitation, MCI was made responsible for cleanness in the city. However, the required funds were not released to the local government.
“We are going to impose sanitation charges to run the affairs of Sanitation Directorate but the charges are very nominal and quite reasonable,” Deputy Mayor said, adding: “We are expecting around Rs1.5 billion as revenue through sanitation charges.”
He explained that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is running its affairs by selling the plots but MCI has no such indigenous arrangement.
If CDA did not discontinue its financial support to MCI, we would not have a need to impose the sanitation charges but now we are forced to do this.
He said that without imposing sanitation charges, we cannot keep the city clean and it was expected that the whole operation gets stopped.
He further said that the imposition of charges would further improve the sanitation system in the city, which will eventually reduce the burden from local hospitals. This will also support the Prime Minister’s Clean and Green Pakistan initiative.
Meanwhile, the opposition leader MCI Raja Shiraz Kiani stressed upon treasury and opposition members to become untied to protect and run the local government system in Islamabad.
“We are standing behind the Mayor of Islamabad to strengthen the local government system in Islamabad,” he said.
Some of the other members of MCI while sharing their views in the house were of the view that the MCI was formed to serve the masses but unfortunately it could not deliver in an effective manner.
They said we would have to take strict decisions to run the affairs of MCI, as the organisation needs Rs13 billion annually. The amount collected under the head of sanitation charges would be used for the development of the city other than the sanitation.
The Mayor of Islamabad Shaikh Ansar Aziz has sought the approval of the house to impose sanitation charges in the city, which was accorded unanimously by the treasury and opposition benches.
Mayor while responding on the issue has said that we are going to impose the sanitation charges because the government did not provide required funds to us and asked to run our affairs at our own.
