December 12, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 17, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: The National Reconstruction Bureau on Thursday proposed to the 6th National Finance Commission to consider distributing resources from the divisible pool on a 50-50 basis.

Announcing what he called the “50-50 Formula” at a press conference, NRB chairman Daniyal Aziz said the proposal would ensure provincial autonomy and better relations between the centre and provincial governments.

Under the formula, he said, 50 per cent from the divisible pool would be transferred to provinces and the rest would be kept with the federal government.

“I am hopeful that the financial autonomy will pave the way to greater provincial autonomy and improve the centre-provinces relations,” he said.

In reply to a question, he said provinces must have enough resources with them so that they could provide adequate monetary assistance to the district governments for their development activities and for improving the quality of life at the grass roots.

Mr Aziz said devolution from provinces to the district level had been done effectively but the process of devolution from centre to provinces still required a lot of work.

The NRB, he said, had prepared different working models for transfer of powers from the centre to provinces and added that these proposals would be submitted to the competent authority for approval.

Answering a question, the NRB chief expressed satisfaction over the implementation of the devolution plan. “Very few people are opposing the devolution system not because of its failure, but because of being jealous of its success,” he remarked.

Talking about the implementation of the police system in tribal areas of Balochistan, he said a plan had been finalized to convert “B” areas (tribal areas) into “A” areas (where police system exists). The plan would be implemented in phases, he added.

He denied there was discord between parliamentarians and chairmen of the newly-formed Public Safety Commissions in different parts of the country.

Meanwhile, according to the informed sources, the federal government has expressed willingness to offer provinces roughly 42pc of the total revenues provided they adopt a “give and take” approach to the finalization of the NFC award, Ihtasham ul Haq adds.

They said provinces were demanding a share of more than 42pc from the pool and added that each of the three smaller provinces had proposed a formula based on its own advantages for sharing this amount among themselves. Only Punjab, the most populace province, agrees to the existing formula of sharing the resources on the basis of population.

The offer of the 4pc from the federal government includes Rs20 billion by way of subvention and Rs32 billion from the 2.5pc share of general sales tax.

The second meeting of the newly constituted NFC will be held in Lahore on Saturday.