MUZAFFARABAD, (Parliament Times) : All Kashmir Newspaper Society Secretary General Raja Amjad Hussain has demanded from the Azad Kashmir government that the bureaucracy has used the PUBLIC PROCUREMENT REGULATORY AUTHORITY (PPRA) Rules for the elimination of corruption as a means of achieving its specific goals and obtaining legal certificates for corruption.
Which should be removed immediately.
The bureaucracy and certain mafias have tried their best to cut the throat of the state press by enforcing this authority or rules away from its original purpose and enforcing them only in name only.
That is why the All Azad Kashmir Newspaper Society, which is totally against the implementation of these rules, strongly demands its immediate abolition or revocation on the basis of its erroneous and without any mechanism that it should be abolished only by the state press. It should not be implemented as a conspiracy but should be used for its real purpose which is transparency. No series of e-tendering has been started in Azad Kashmir so far and no online update system has been launched in Azad Kashmir yet. Government departments and bureaucrats have enforced these rules by banning the publication of tenders, vacancies and advertisements on two national newspapers and the PAPRA website for tenders worth more than two million rupees. While the PAPRA website is charging a website fee of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per advertisement. While the total cost of the website is less than Rs 7 per ad. And, at 25,000 the whole website is rearranged for one year. Similarly, advertisements worth less than Rs 20,000 have been exempted from publication and the department consumes the money by making its own package. No national newspaper has been declared by any authority in Azad Kashmir so far and it exists and it is not permissible to ban it.
We demand the immediate lifting of the ban on two national newspapers for advertisements worth over Rs 2. million re-publish in more newspapers. Advertising and the imposition of laws on them is a conspiracy to shut down the state press under a plan that is unacceptable. E-tendering and mechanism should also be considered for enforcing the paper rules for transparency in all sectors and if not then the stronghold of corruption should be eliminated.