GUJRAT: As many as 200 private hospitals/clinics and around 1,000 private educational institutions including schools and colleges are functional in residential buildings in violation of the rules and regulations of local bodies across the district.

The respective local institutions such as the district council, the Municipal Corporation and municipal committees have issued notices to the owners of these residential buildings for commercialisation after the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Gujrat circle took seriousnotice of the matter.

The violation of rules has caused a loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer.

According to the rules, the buildings being used for the commercial purposes have to get approval from the council or municipality concerned through paying the fee which is around 20pc of the total market value.

However, in case of the building`s commercial use for a hospital, school/college or a factory, the ratio reduces to the level of 5 to 10pc of the total market value.

A senior officer in the ACE told Dawn that the anti-graft body had collected the required informa-tion through a `secret survey` of those hospitals and educational institutions that had been operating in residential buildings without getting these buildings commercialised by paying the due taxes to the local bodies. It`s surprising, he said, that hundreds of such buildings were found in such a category of not being approved as commercial.

The figure of such private hospitals was more than 200 whereas the number of educational institutions was at least 1,000, he said, adding that the local institutions had now started issuing notices to the owners of these residential buildings for the payment of the commercialisation fee.It is also learnt that after issuance of notices to the owners of suchbuildings,the localbodiesin Gujrat have started receiving hef ty amounts.

The ACE is conducting a special scrutiny of the revenue-generating government agencies across the province with particular attention towards the affairs of local governments where tax evasion had been going on in connivance with the government officials. Many graft cases have been registered against ofñcials in Gujrat during the last two months.

The ACE is already conducing inquiries into the affairs of the local governments.