CM-KP chairs meeting, deliberate on steps to boost revenue collection

PESHAWAR
Chief Minister Khyber Sardar Ali Amin Khan Gandapur on Thursday chaired an important meeting of the Local Governments Department. The meeting deliberated upon various reform initiatives and made important decisions related Local Government Deparment.
Minister for Local Governments Arshad Ayub Khan, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Amjad Ali Khan, Special Secretary to Chief Minister Waqar Ali Khan, administrative secretaries of the concerned departments and other relevant high ups attended the meeting.
As an important step to enhance the revenue collection of the provincial government by effectively utilizing Local Governments properties , the meeting has finalized the draft of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Governments (Property Lease) Rules, 2024, which would be tabled before the next meeting of the provincial cabinet for final approval.
Briefing about the salient features of the newly drafted property lease rules, it was informed that the property lease period for large-scale investment, has been proposed to extend up to 90 years.
According to the details; Initial lease period for investment larger than Rs 500 million, shall be determined 66 years extendable to the period of further 33 years.
Similarly, Initial lease period for investment upto Rs. 500 million, shall be determined 33 years extendable to the period of further 33 years. Investment plan upto Rs. 200 million would have an initial lease period of 33 years, which would also be extendable to further 15 years.
It was further informed that in case of death of the lease holder, the lease rights shall be transferable to the legal heirs for the remaining lease period. The local government’s properties would be leased out through a lease committee to be chaired by the deputy commissioner of respective district.
The Chief Minister on this occasion has directed the concerned quarters to introduce online leasing mechanism so that investors from abroad can also benefit the opportunities easily.
“The ultimate purpose is to increase the revenue stream of the province by strengthening the prevailing system as well as facilitating the investors in potential sectors of the province”, he remarked.
It was decided in the meeting to establish fruit and vegetable markets across the province under the auspices of Tehsil Municipal Administrations, further deciding that the private sector investors would be encouraged for this purpose.
The main objective of establishing new fruit and vegetable markets is to optimally facilitate the people, and that’s why it is also indispensable to regulate the markets already available in the province, he said and added that increasing number of markets will not only be helpful to improve the quality but to stabilize the prices as well.
The Chief Minister also agreed to the proposed plan for digital transformation of Local Governments Department, under which Integrated Citizen Services, Reporting, Compliance & Monitoring System would be established.
Other salient features of the proposed digitalization plan include; Revenue Generation, Digital Payments, Public Service Delivery, Integrated Portal, Performance Management and a Dashboard for Central Oversight.
The chief minister has directed the authorities concerned to immediately start work on the proposed digitalization plan, and made it clear that complete record of department’s employees, properties, leases, payments, revenue collection, performance and other important matters should be available on dashboard.
He also directed that all kinds of TMA transactions must be made through bank accounts, adding that TMAs workers are working on front line; we have to disperse the negative perspective about them. He maintained that the local governments department has a very vide scope as it is working across the province even at the gross route level.
“It is imperative to strengthen all the subsidiaries of the department thereby improving the services delivery system and utilizing its properties in a benefiting manner for increasing the revenue stream of the province, he concluded.