RCB decides to make public names of chronic property tax defaulters

Rawalpindi

The management of Rawalpindi Cantonment Board, headed by Chief Executive Officer Dr. Saima Shah, has finally decided to make public the names of all chronic defaulters of property tax through print media if they fail to pay their dues by March 15 this year.

The CEO is adopting the strategy of displaying the names of chronic defaulters of property tax owing to the situation of financial crunch persisting in the RCB.

RCB Secretary Qaisar Qamar told ‘The News’ that the defaulters have not paid their property tax since the last 17 years i.e. from the year 1999 and their dues have touched to around Rs1.97 billion till now.

At present, the RCB is facing funds shortage even to meet its expenditure which is around Rs980million while the generation capacity of revenue is Rs700 million annually, with a deficit of Rs280 million.

Anyhow, taking strong notice, the CEO has now directed the revenue staff to recover the default amount of Rs1.97 billion by March 31 by working round the clock.

Due to severe financial crisis prevailing in the civic body, RCB faces problem of clearance of liabilities which has crossed to more than Rs4 billion to be paid to Iesco, petrol companies, utility and medical bills.

Besides this the government has yet not released funds worth Rs536 million which the RCB has to pay to CDA , working on the implementation of 3rd phase of Khanpur Dam project. If the civic body fails to pay its share of Rs536 million then the CDA has reportedly threatened to suspend water share of Khanpur to RCB.

As a result, problem of acute water shortage would erupt in CCB localities not RCB, said Qaisar Qamar.

The secretary said however the RCB has approached the government authorities in this connection and it is hoped that the Khanpur funds would be released by the government soon and the work on the 3rd phase of Khanpur Dam project would be completed in schedule period of December this year.

Our correspondent adds: Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) President Professor Shabbir Lehri on Monday said medical education should not be used as a business.

“Everyone related to the medical profession should fulfil responsibilities in line with the PMDC-prescribed code of ethics to do justice to their noble profession,” he told faculty members during a surprise visit to the Central Park Medical College.

The visit was conducted to examine the facilities for students and standard of education on campus.

The college is recognised to train 100 MBBS students and that Bhatti International Teaching Hospital and Wapda Hospital are attached to it.