Contractor stopped from catching fish in Rawal Dam.

Byline: Kalbe Ali

ISLAMABAD -- Discarding its previous decision, the capital administration has stopped the contractor from catching fish in Rawal Dam.

The move is giving way for illegal fishing in the water reservoir.

The abrupt termination of the fishing contract in November has also affected the district administration's earnings. On the other hand, the capital administration has amended the rules relaxing penalties against illegal fishing.

The situation has also placed the residents of Islamabad at a losing end, because they too have been deprived of fresh catch as a large number of people used to purchase fish from the sale outlet of the contractor.

'There are suspicions about the source of the catch. There is always a feeling that fish being sold are netted some time earlier but at the sale point we could see the lot being unloaded from boats,' said Azhar Ali, a resident of Rawalpindi.

Though contract expired in November, capital administration neither implemented DC's decision to extend it nor floated tender for new contract

Meanwhile, Deputy Director Fisheries Imtiaz Janjua said the fishing contract had already expired.

'That is why they are not allowed to conduct commercial activity in the lake,' he added.

However, neither the deputy director nor any senior officer of the capital administration had an answer when asked why tenders for a new contract had not been floated as the old contract expired in November.

When contacted, contractor Sher Bahadur Afridi said the new contract should have been floated in the summer so that the new contractor could have started business in the winter of 2019.

He referred to a decision made by the deputy commissioner Islamabad in June 2018 under which the existing contract was to be extended for another year.

The decision stated: 'Rs20.12m compensation for the fish mortality be paid by the Department of Fisheries ICT to the contractor and the department may extend the contract by one year in lieu of compensation to be paid to the contractor.'

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