KOHAT: The traders in the private fruit and vegetable market here have rejected the imposition of Rs2 million annual licence fee by the Kohat tehsil council.

The tehsil council took the decision after the Peshawar High Court ruled that the private fruit market should continue operations.

The tehsil council had challenged that the two fruit markets cannot function in the same district.

Move comes as court allows fruit market to continue operation

When contacted, tehsil naib nazim Shahid Iqbal told Dawn that the tehsil council was against operation of two fruit markets in the same district, but when the owner of the private facility got court orders in his favour, the council imposed the annual licence fee on it.

He explained that all income from the private market was going into the pockets of a single person, whereas the TMA had invested millions of rupees in its market just to receive rent and facilitate the businessmen.

To a question, he said out of 107 shops only 35 were functional in the TMA-run market as many shops had been left incomplete by the contractor, who had run away taking millions of rupees with him. He said a case was in the court against him.

Similarly, Mr Iqbal said many shops in the government market had been obtained by irrelevant persons like president of Kohat bar association, Javed Panji, president of the bazaar union, Sher Khan, president of Kohat chamber of commerce, Rashid Paracha, and others, who were doing property business there.

He said a case to take back the shops from these people was pending in the sessions court.

Meanwhile, president of the private fruit and vegetable market, Yousaf Khan, said the licence fee of Rs2 million was injustice and should be rationalised.

He alleged that the government’s fruit market was without any facilities and was at a long distance from the city.

He said there were only seven to eight businessmen in the TMA-owned market, whereas the retailers easily took consignments from the private market due to its close proximity to the city.

COMPLETION OF SPORTS STADIUM ORDERED: The district administration has ordered early installation of seats and completion of work on the sports stadium.

Additional deputy commissioner, Shah Nawaz Naveed, visited the stadium on Friday, and issued a deadline of January 25 for the completion of work. He directed the sports officer to make arrangements of lifting debris side by side with construction so the playing fields remained clean and available for use.

Meanwhile, the district nazim has revoked the order of deputy commissioner of suspension of CNG supply to the filling stations during peak hours to facilitate domestic consumers.

The deputy commissioner had banned supply of CNG to the pumps from 5am to 8am and from 6pm to 9pm till February 10, 2019, on Thursday.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2019