PESHAWAR, Feb 17: The NWFP government is set to miss annual target under its vital non-tax receipt head of abiana (water rate) in view of negligible revenue raised under this head during the first half of the current financial year, according to official sources.

Senior government functionaries told Dawn that the provincial government’s bid to raise Rs313 million through abiana in 2002-03 were likely to remain unfulfilled in view of the paltry sum raised under this head during the July-Dec period of the current fiscal year.

The province raised a total of Rs40 million through abiana receipts during the first half of the current fiscal year making the provincial finance managers to believe that the achievement of the annual target would end in a far cry.

“Achievement of the annual target is not possible, absolutely impossible,” said a tax collector of the provincial government on condition of anonymity.

The sum raised during the July-Dec period makes only 12.8 per cent of the total annual target.

In view of the amount raised, the provincial tax collection machinery is required to raise over 87 per cent of the total annual target during the second half of the current fiscal year.

The Rs313 million annual target, according to official sources, also involves an amount of over Rs220 million accumulated as arrears against the farming community of the province over the years. Whereas, fresh demand for the current fiscal year has been fixed at slightly over Rs90 million.

In a recently made administrative arrangement, the Irrigation and Power Department, NWFP, has been made responsible to collect abiana from the start of the current Kharif season relieving the provincial Board of Revenue (BoR) from this responsibility.

However, the Board would be responsible to recover the arrears payable by farmers till Dec 31, 2002.

Official sources apprehended that as the irrigation and power department, NWFP, would need some time to effectively take on the job and develop a prudent mechanism to collect abiana from farmers, hence, there were greater chances that the province would miss the annual target with a big margin.

“The proportion of the gap between the recoveries and annual target is likely to be much higher than the previous years,” said the official sources.

The new administrative arrangement, said the sources, had already lend negative impact to the recovery spree of the provincial government in comparison with the corresponding period of the last financial year.

Against Rs40 million raised during the July-Jan 2002-03, said the official sources, the province had raised over Rs70.1 million during the first seven months of the last fiscal year.

Official sources attributed the decline in recoveries, this time round, to the exercise the Board initiated right from the start of the current fiscal year to pass on the role to collect abiana to the irrigation and power department.

Sources in the BoR said that the move to delegate the role to collect abiana to the irrigation department was necessitated to make a single entity responsible for the job.

Earlier, the BoR was responsible to collect abiana from farmers. Whereas, the role to determine annual target was performed by the irrigation and power department which was used to set the target by making assessment through its field staff. “By delegating both the roles to the irrigation department one can hope about improvement,” hoped an irrigation department officer. The province had ended up with a total recoveries of Rs152 million at the close of the 2001-02 against an annual target of Rs375 million.

Though the size of the annual target for the 2002-03, said the sources, had been reduced after several parts of the province were declared calamity hit recently, the province was still likely to miss the Rs313 million annual target with a gap of around Rs200 million.