New levy: PHA to raise funds by taxing rickshaw ads

The content of these ads would also be screened, says PHA DG.

LAHORE:

The Parks and Horticulture Authority on Thursday decided to tax advertisements placed on rickshaws in the city.

The decision was taken in a board of directors meeting at the PHA head office. The authority is yet to decide details of taxation. It will soon draft a summary in this regard and send it to the Law Department for approval.

MPA Mohsin Latif, MPA Ramazan Shafiq Bhatti, the housing secretary, the finance secretary, the PHA director general, the Lahore Development Authority DG, Horticulturalist Nosheen Sarfaraz, Environmentalist Rafay Alam, the district coordination officer and the local government secretary attended the meeting. It was chaired by the PHA BoD Vice Chairman Iftikhar Ahmad.

The board decided that the PHA could tax ads placed on rickshaws to generate income for the authority.  The PHA already collects a tax on advertisements carried on buses plying in the city. The buses are charged a flat rate, regardless of the route, for every square metre of the ad.



The PHA has now decided to tax low-cost ads placed on rickshaws. A lot of these advertisements are commissioned by practitioners of alternative medicines, small businesses and politicians. Rickshaws carry these ads for weeks or months at rates varying from a few hundred to a few thousand rupees.

The PHA, after approval from the BoD, will draft a summary laying down a policy to introduce a new head for taxation.  The PHA will implement the policy after the government approves the proposal.  PHA DG Mian Shakeel said the authority could generate significant revenue by taxing ads placed on auto rickshaws. He said the contents of ads would also be monitored and regulated by the PHA. He said they would not allow “obscene” ads. However, he did not give a deadline for when the summary would be sent to the Law Department for approval.

Tree plantation

Participants of the meeting also decided to plant 40,000 fruit trees at several locations in the city. The PHA finalised details for the upcoming Spring Festival (Jashan-i-Baharan). Participants said they wanted to transform the city into “a big garden”. They said the decorations and events would represent the culture and traditions of all provinces. Canal Road will be decorated with flowers, floats and colourful lights.

They said seminars would be held in several universities to encourage students to hold their own tree plantation drives. The participants also discussed the possibility of regularising some of the contractual employees.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2014.