No voting rights for ‘outsiders’: Balochistan proposal under study
By Khaleeq Kiani
ISLAMABAD, Dec 26: The federal government is considering a proposal not to give voting rights in Balochistan for 50 years to workers from other parts of the country in order to allay concerns of the province’s nationalist parties that mega projects would turn the Baloch into a minority, according to the province’s finance minister.
The federal government is also studying a proposal to bring uniformity in gas prices across the country for the calculation of gas development surcharge (GDS) to increase Balochistan’s share, but the province has put a simultaneous claim of Rs150 billion on account of GDS arrears since 1952, a senior official in the petroleum ministry told Dawn.
These were some of the proposals the parliamentary committee on Balochistan, led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, discussed last week here and `attracted a very positive response’, Balochistan Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah told Dawn. Mr Shah, who is also a member of the committee representing Balochistan National Party (Awami), told Dawn that the next meeting of the parliamentary committee would be held in Quetta early next month.
He said the committee considered the proposal that non-Baloch workers, investors or others should neither be given voting rights for 50 years in Balochistan nor should they be allowed to obtain national identity cards based on addresses in the province. A senior government official said the federal ministries for law, interior and inter-provincial coordination would do homework on legal parameters of the move before the Shujaat committee makes any firm commitment at the Quetta meeting.
In reply to a question on Senator Dilawar Abbas’s formula on determination of GDS, Mr Shah said Balochistan had neither rejected the proposal nor accepted it. A senior official said the Dilawar formula had been proposed by the ministry of petroleum and natural resources as the only `fair and just’ solution. The new formula gives weightage to volume, heating value and sale price to determine gas development surcharge share to all provinces.
The difference between the producer price and the average consumer price is considered GDS. Balochistan believes it produces a major part of GDS because of lower Sui gas rates, but Sindh takes away the better part because of its higher gas production.
Mr Shah said Balochistan had urged the federal government to `redress the injustice’ done to it over the years by paying Rs150 billion to settle the difference between the `lower GDS’ paid and the `actual amount’. The new formula for uniform gas price for GDS purposes and payment or Rs150 billion in arrears should move in tandem, the provincial government suggested.Mr Shah said Balochistan was also considering seeking `in kind’ payment of 12.5 per cent royalty on natural gas. He explained that instead of getting 12.5 per cent royalty in cash, the province would like to have equivalent quantities of natural gas to meet local consumers’ needs and this would give a benefit of about Rs1 billion per annum to the province. He said the relevant provisions of the constitution envisage such a dispensation.
In reply to another question, the Balochistan finance minister said the federal government was providing a one-time grant of Rs5 billion for conversion of `B’ areas into `A’ areas to restore the writ of the government, but this would entail an additional running expenditure of Rs4 to 5 billion per annum.
“We have asked the federal government to meet this running expenditure on a continuous basis if it really wants to convert B-areas into A-areas,” he said.
The committee had also discussed the National Reconstruction Bureau’s proposal to give 50 per cent resources to the provinces and increase the weightage of area and poverty in the calculation of shares in the proceeds of the divisible pool.
