Daily Times

RAWALPINDI: Marriage halls are mushrooming all across the Rawalpindi city and Cantonment areas owing to unholy alliance of Shadi hall mafia and corrupt elements of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), Town Municipal Administration (TMA) of Rawal and Pothohar town and other departments, who are making mockery of respective by laws.

These illegal marriage halls have outnumbered the CNG stations during the last 10 years but no action has been taken against a single illegal marriage hall which has emboldened the shadi hall mafia to trample down the bylaws and set up marriage hall at their free will in any locality.

RDA sources told Daily Times that Punjab government had adopted a bill in 2007 pertaining to establishment of marriage halls in the province. According to this bill at least 4 kanal land was made mandatory for construction of a new marriage hall. It was made legally binding on owners of marriage halls to allocate 3 kanal area for car parking.

Flouting these by laws, the respective town municipal administrations and RDA not only accorded permission for new marriage halls in large number. They also provided clean chit to marriage halls already operating illegally after pocketing hefty money.

Sources said that over 70 per cent marriage halls operating in thickly populated areas of Rawalpindi city and more than 100 marriage halls in the limits of Cantonment and Pothohar Town do not meet the requirement of laws enacted by provincial government. In certain areas the people started business in the name of hotels and later they named their hotels as marriage halls. This way not only loss of million of rupees is being caused to national kitty in terms of taxes and duties but also no facility even emergency passage and cleanliness is existing in these hotel like marriage halls. Owing to lack of car parking arrangements in these marriage halls, the wedding guests park their cars in surrounding streets and roads causing traffic jam for hours. The owners of these marriage halls are not only affiliated with major political parties but also they are elected office bearers of marriage hall associations due to their political clout therefore, local administration shows their inability to take any action against them.