Tax on Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas road plaza takes its ‘toll’ on travellers

Residents of Tando Jam say they should be exempted from tax or plaza should be relocated.

HYDERABAD: The simmering tensions between residents of Tando Jam and the management of the Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas road toll plaza flared up again on Wednesday. The citizens, led by the teachers of the Sindh Agriculture University, government departments and leaders of political parties, blocked the 64-kilometre road by staging a sit-in.

The protest started around noon and the anti-toll plaza action committee announced that it will only end it after their demands were accepted. Meanwhile, hundreds of vehicles - mostly heavy transport vehicles carrying agricultural produce - queued up on sides of the road, awaiting its clearance. Since the beginning of the tax collection in September, 2012, the plaza has witnessed numerous clashes between the citizens, teachers, government servants and politicians against the plaza’s staff. Over a dozen retaliatory FIRs have also been filed by both the sides in the Rahuki police station.

The toll plaza on the newly built 64-kilometer Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas road has been put up in Tando Jam town which is located in Hyderabad’s rural taluka. The road has been constructed under Rs5.7 billion joint venture by a South Korean company, Doek Jae, under the build-operate-and-transfer basis. The company is responsible for the road’s maintenance and collection of the toll tax for 30 years.

The road, which has been built over the old road, connects the two districts through Tando Allahyar district. Its additional features, which are yet to be provided, include rest areas, a medical facility, emergency ambulance service, service areas and mosques. The road has yet to be formally inaugurated.

Ongoing dispute

The residents of Tando Jam demanded that either they should be exempted from the tax or the plaza should be relocated at the end of Hyderabad’s district boundary. “It is completely unfair that we have to pay tax daily for inter-district and inter-town movement,” said Dr Hafeezullah Bubbur, a scientist at the Sindh Agriculture Research Institute.



Bubbur, who was leading the anti-toll plaza committee, said that the protest this time around was a decisive one. “We will not withdraw till the government removes this plaza from here,” he told The Express Tribune. The leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Functional, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Jamaat-i-Islami, Qaumi Awami Tehreek, Sindh Taraqi Pasand and other parties also participated in the demonstration.

An official of the district administration, Nazar Hussain Shahani, tried to persuade the protesters to end the blockade but failed. “The deputy commissioner wants two to three days to sort out the matter with the works and services department as it involves complications due to the agreement with the company. But they are not agreeing,” he said.

The Doek Jae’s spokesperson, Hashim Rajjar, said that they have informed the residents repeatedly that only the Sindh government can exempt them from tax - not the company. “We are collecting the tax as per the notification of the works and services department. If they issue a notification exempting the people [from tax], we will comply,” he told The Express Tribune.

Rajjar, however, rejected the possibility of relocating the plaza, saying that it would lead to another dispute as there is already opposition to the current location of the toll plaza in Mirpurkhas as well. The works and services officials could not be contacted for their version.

The road blockade continued till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2013.