Cantt traders decry exponential hike in rent

Say they are ready to pay taxes but administration should review taxation categories

PESHAWAR: Already perturbed by a new taxation scheme, traders in the bustling markets of Saddar in Peshawar Cantonment claim they have been burdened by another exorbitant expense — an exponential increase in rent.

Appeals to the Peshawar Cantonment Board (PCB) authorities, they say, have fallen on deaf ears.

Talking to the Express Forum, traders from Sadder bazaar and adjoining markets, including Muhammad Shaukat, Aftab Khan, Mian Muhammad Akhtar said that they had acquired shops on lease but their rents have been risen by a thousand per cent last year. They added that a shopkeeper who was paying Rs3,000 in monthly rent last year now has to pay Rs30,000 to PCB. They complained that the board had failed to implement a rent formula provided by traders.

Further, the claimed that the commercial rates being charged by the PCB were far higher than those charged in the other 42 cantonment boards in the country. To make matters worse, they said that there was a massive difference in shop rents inside the cantonment areas of the city and outside it, hinting that traders may opt to move to areas with lower rent.

The traders further complained that even if the PCB wants to charge such exorbitant rent, they were not provided services of equal measure. As an example, they said that electricity wires installed in the market were quite old and have been replaced for at least 32 years.

They demanded that the 500-bed hospital within the cantonment’s jurisdiction should be revamped to provide citizens with better facilities.

Cantonment Tajir Tanzeem President Mujeebur Rehman suggested that funds received in lieu of the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) project should be spent on the welfare of traders since the project had badly affected their business.

He added that the authorities should take notice and investigate the substandard development work in different markets within the cantonment.

He accused the anti-encroachment department of the cantonment administration of allegedly having a nexus with the encroachment mafia who allegedly received tip-offs regarding anti-encroachment operations ahead of time. As a result, Rehman said that markets continue to suffer from illegal encroachments.

Asked about the issue of paying taxes over which traders had backed a nationwide strike earlier this month, Rehman clarified that they had never refused to pay taxes nor had they shied away from their national duty and reiterated that they were ready to pay them.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2019.