PESHAWAR, Jan 9: Due to non-payment of net-hydel profit share by Wapda and reduced payments made by Islamabad to Peshawar from the Federal Divisible Pool (FDP), NWFP experienced resource crunch during the first four months of the current financial year, contained an official handout issued here on Wednesday.

“The financial position of the province remained squeezed during the first four months (July-October) of the financial year 2001-2002,” contained the official handout, adding that “liquidity continued to be the major problem because of non-availability of net hydel profits”.

In an unprecedented move the provincial government on Wednesday released details of its overall financial position, receipts, non-developmental expenditure and other budgetary details pertaining to the first four months of the current financial year.

According to an official handout issued late at night on Wednesday, the province received Rs4,734.884 million (21.73 per cent of Budget Estimates) from the FDP, Rs1,324.564 million (31 per cent of Budget Estimates) on account of subvention, Rs300 million for switching over from the old system of governance to the decentralized system, Rs52.5 million as development grant and Rs364 million for carrying out development schemes under the Khushal Pakistan Programme.

Whereas, the provincial own receipts (PORs) stood at Rs868.242 million (23.5 per cent of the budgetary estimates) at the close of the first four months of the current financial year.

According to data available with this scribe, the provincial government recorded a shortfall of over Rs362 million on proportionate basis in its PORs during the period.

Performance of the Excise and Taxation Department, NWFP, and the provincial Board of Revenue remained below the mark and in this respect the official handout contained that the two collecting agencies require an urgent improvement to achieve the revenue targets that had been set for the current financial year.

The two are responsible to collect 49.66 per cent of the over Rs3.69 billion Provincial Own Receipts.

Whereas, the gross receipts of the province during the July-October 2001 stood at Rs7,644.64 million, according to the official handout.

Transfer to districts: As a step forward towards the decentralization of powers, the NWFP government established a separate account for each of district and tehsil governments in line with the Local Government Ordinance, 2001.

The government, contained the official handout, released a total of Rs2,848.407 million to the district and tehsil government including Rs1,776.171 million for development works and Rs1,072.236 million for non development expenditure.

Giving a break down of the development funds, the handout said that Rs268.114 million was released for executing the ongoing schemes covered under the Annual Development Plan of the province and Rs1,508.057 million for the schemes designed under the Khushal Pakistan Programme.

Whereas, out of the total funds released to meet the non-development cost of the district and tehsil governments, Rs546.870 million was meant for the district governments’ departments, Rs156 million for switching over to the new system of governance, Rs361.110 million for grant in lieu of Octroi and Zila tax and Rs8.256 million to cover the cost of transport, telephone, travelling and payment of honorarium to the district Nazims.

Expenditure: The expenditure on Revenue account during the same period (July-October) was Rs7,212.192 million (20 per cent of the Budget Estimates). The development expenditure was Rs399.694 million (11.04 per cent). The gross expenditure was Rs7,611.887 million against the gross receipts of Rs7,644.640 million, contained the official handout.