September 4, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Saani25,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

ISLAMABAD, Sept 3: The provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP have begun consultation for determining a formula for distribution of a proposed “subvention pool” to be created in the sixth National Finance Commission award.

The understanding for creation of a separate pool for compensating Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP was reached at among the five stakeholders — the four provinces and the federal government — at the NFC meeting in Karachi last week.

“The three provinces have to develop an agreed formula for distribution of subvention pool before the next meeting of the commission,” a source at the finance ministry told Dawn.

It has been a long-standing demand of the three provinces that factors like backwardness, size of the province and its revenue generation should be given due consideration when distributing financial resources.

Besides the creation of a separate pool the provinces also succeeded in prevailing upon the federal government to increase their share in the divisible pool from 37 per cent to a slightly over 40 per cent in the next award, the source said.

The NFC, which had been constituted last year, could not meet even once till last month when President Gen Pervez Musharraf, on the insistence of smaller provinces directed that the 6th NFC award be finalized before October elections.

A two-day meeting of the NFC was held in Karachi last week where the four provinces and the federal government agreed on evolving the next formula for distribution of financial resources on the basis of population.

The smaller provinces were of the view that the NFC award should be finalized as soon as possible as they had certain reservations against the existing formula which too was announced by a non-elected government in 1997.