Kohat TMA suffers losses as lease holders refuse to revise rent of shops.

KOHAT -- The tehsil municipal administration is sustaining millions of losses due to refusal by tenets to vacate hundreds of shops for re-auction, whose multiple leases of 33 years each expired in 1985, 1988 and 2017, respectively.

Hundreds of shops in Jinnah Plaza, Kotal Plaza, Tehsil Market, fruit and vegetable market and flea market had been leased decades ago.

TMA taxation officer TMA Bashir Ahmed said 350 shops were leased out in 1947 and 1948 in the Main Bazaar and adjacent areas at negligible rates according to land prices prevailing at that time. He said the lease holders were not ready to even accept the revised rent.

He said the administration had provided free land to people, who constructed shops on it, but were not ready to vacate them despite several notices. 'Now the occupants are laying claim over these shops on the premise that they had constructed them,' he said.

He said the occupants were asked to pay Rs70,000 and Rs20,000 per annum for different sizes of shops, which amounted to Rs5,000 and Rs1,600 per month against market rent between Rs40,000 and Rs15,000 per...