KARACHI: Traders are seeking a legal action after the mayor denied voting during the City Council sitting on a resolution demanding a reversal of the hefty raise in shop rents by the KMC.

“Over the 150 percent increase in KMC markets rents is illegal,” Mahmood Hamid, President of Organization of All Pakistan Small Traders and Cottage Industry, said.

He made it clear that this increase violates the law, citing the Rent Control Act of 1979, which permits only a 10 percent raise in rents.

“The KMC traders are facing an additional 150 percent hike,” he added.

He accused the city mayor of “reneging” on the promises to reconsider the unjustified increase, fearing that the recent move to scale up rents by 75 percent is now going to couple with another 75 percent hike, bringing it to 150 percent in total.

“The propaganda suggesting market rents are between 200 to 500 rupees is false. Some KMC markets charge rents between Rs70,000 and Rs90,000,” Mehmood Hamid clarified.

Amid the swirling economic crisis with the record inflation, he said that the rents hike will ravage the traders already grappled with the falling businesses.

“Imposing a 150 percent increase in rents during such challenging times is equivalent to pushing traders into hunger,” he said and called upon the mayor to grow the maintenance funds for the KMC markets.

After his meeting with Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi Chief on Friday, he sought a legal intervention to solve the mammoth raise in rents issues.

Hafiz Naeem informed that a certain resolution seeking the KMC revision into the rent issues was bulldozed in the council without voting by the mayor, calling it a “conspiracy” to drive 9000 traders into poverty.

He said that the council has rejected the unjustified increase that was imposed without consultation with traders, announcing to go to the court to solve the matter for good.

He asserted that the KMC is a civic institution tasked with providing facilities to the citizens, vowing to resist both illegal actions within and outside the council.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023