Too taxing a toll tax

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Normally, outsiders entering a city are charged toll tax. But thousands of Islamabad citizens are charged for entering their own city.

That is particularly true for the citizens living in the rural areas of the capital. Every time they drive into Islamabad proper, they have to pay toll tax at one of the four toll plazas of the city, depending on the direction they come from. “That is unfair and unjustified,” some such travelers complained to Dawn on Sunday.

Of the four toll plazas is located at Sangjani on the G.T. Road which is run by the National Highway Authority (NHA), the second is being controlled by the Punjab government at Satrah Meel while the remaining two – Golra Mor and I. J. Principal Road – are managed by the Capital Development Authority.

An official of the local administration, who did not want to be named because government servants have recently been prohibited from issuing any statement to the media, agreed that nothing had been done to resolve the issue despite repeated complaints from the public. He said a few years back he raised the issue of levying the toll tax on the residents of Islamabad by the Punjab highway department at Satrah Meel and called a meeting of the departments concerned under Section 133 of Pakistan Penal Code that dealt with blocking of a pubic way.

“I stopped them from charging the road tax from the locals and directed them to shift their toll plaza out of the federal capital periphery,” the official added.

Later, the contractor of the toll plaza obtained a stay order and continued to collect the tax from the residents. In Satrah Meel toll plaza, the Punjab government is charging Rs45 for each vehicle for one-time entry.

The residents of the nearby villages, including Phulgran, Karot and Chattar, were of the view that the toll plaza was established to collect road tax only from visitors to Murree and upward areas.

Former CDA Chairman Kamran Lashari had once announced that the residents of Islamabad would be exempted from the toll at these plazas. But the decision has not yet been implemented. “Only the residents of villages close to the toll plaza are exempted from the tax but they have to prove their identity,” said Hameed Akhtar, a resident of Sarai Madhu village near the Sangjani toll plaza.

The NHA is currently charging Rs25 from each car at the Sangjani toll plaza while the toll plazas being run by the CDA are collecting Rs5 from each vehicle.

A CDA’s toll collection point at Golra Mor has also become a source of inconvenience for the residents, especially those living in sector G-14, H-13 and areas up to the G.T. Road towards the western side of Islamabad.