Local bodies dept raises rent

The 37 district and 147 tehsil councils across Punjab are facing a financial crisis despite owning agricultural and commercial properties worth billions of rupees.

In order to overcome the lack of funds, the Punjab Local Government Department has started the process to register its agricultural and commercial land, as well as to increase the rent and lease amount fixed several years ago. According to sources in the department, it is estimated that the income of the local bodies may increase up to two-fold by re-evaluating the rents.

When Local Governments Secretary Dr Muhammad Irshad sought the details of the properties from all the district, tehsil and municipal committees, it was revealed that the contracts of most of the occupants in the nine divisions of Punjab had expired. A large number of people are occupying land without an agreement.

On the direction of the secretary, the properties have been registered and after negotiations with the occupants, about Rs100 million had been added to the annual income.

The local bodies are facing financial problems following transfer of various functions, including parking stands, slaughter houses, cattle markets, advertising boards to companies and authorities. They had informed the secretary several times about their situation, but their funds could not be increased.

The sources said the local bodies owned properties worth billions of rupees, but they had been neglected by the authorities, while some officials benefitted by colluding with then tenants. They said the department also lacked complete record of the total properties, how many of them were residential, commercial and agricultural, their rent, the number of cases pertaining to them in the courts and then number of defaulters.

As per the details submitted to the secretary, the local bodies in the province currently had 5,083 acres of land, of which the largest area of 1,551 acres is in Bahawalpur division.

The local bodies in Dera Ghazi Khan own 130 acres of land, Faisalabad 438 acres, Gujranwala 227 acres, Lahore 259 acres, Multan 1,193 acres, Rawalpindi 883 acres, Sahiwal 160 acres and Sargodha 242 acres, which are being used at minimal charges and the government exchequer is getting a negligible amount from the resources.

The local bodies 61,658 properties worth billions of rupees, among which there are 308 shops and 51,174 other commercial properties allotted on rent. Among them, 6,236 occupants are using the properties under agreements, while the contracts of 18,825 people has expired, but they are running businesses without a new agreement.

The sources said the secretary had been informed that 23,121 people were occupying commercial premises of local governments without permission, but the officials concerned had not taken action against them.

The local bodies are receiving about Rs30.7 million annually for the commercial properties, while most of the occupants have not paid dues of hundreds of millions of rupees.

Local Government Secretary Dr Irshad told The Express Tribune that the details of the properties had been sought from all the local bodies and they had been registered.

Negotiations with the rightful occupants are under way and the initial effort has increased the revenue by millions of rupees.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2023.