KARACHI, Sept. 20: In his first address to the parliament on Saturday President Asif Zardari’s emphasis on financial autonomy for the provinces as a prerequisite for a strong and viable federation is expected to induce the government for an early convening of the recently constituted National Finance Commission (NFC) to give a consensus formula for distribution of national resources between the federation and the provinces.

“There are all possibilities of reaching a quick consensus in the NFC,’’ Mr Gulfaraz, the private non-statutory member on NFC nominated by Balochistan told Dawn on telephone.

Based on his informal interaction with representatives of other provinces and making his assessment on the basis of prevailing political environment Mr Gulfaraz, a former federal secretary of petroleum and natural resources, was highly optimistic on reaching a consensus on resources distribution that would be based on multiple factors.

Balochistan proposes inverse population density ratio as one of the factors to be taken for resource allocation in the next NFC Award. With 44 per cent of Pakistan’s total area, Balochistan has thin population of less than 10 million and hence it gets hardly 5 per cent share in national resources.

“Consider investment on development schemes that would benefit the number of people in a sparsely populated province if you want Balochistan to come at par with rest of the country in development indicators,’’ a senior bureaucrat in Quetta asserted.

Poverty and backwardness are the factors that Balochistan, Sindh and NWFP want to make as one of the criteria for resources allocation to the provinces. A study of Social Policy and Development Centre, a well-known private consultancy in Karachi, has found incidence of poverty highest in Sindh and Balochistan. The poverty is now also on rise in the NWFP following a full- scale insurgency in some parts of the province. Some parts of Punjab are also poverty stricken.

Revenue generation efforts too need an encouragement and incentive in resource allocation is a principle advocated by Sindh for last more than 35 years. With a revenue share of more than 65 per cent it hardly gets 16 to 17 per cent of national taxes.

While the three provinces have been pleading for a multiple criteria for NFC, Punjab was the only province that insisted on keeping population as the only basis for share in national taxes and in government jobs.

In last eight years when Musharraf was in power, two NFC’s were formed. The first one failed to reach any consensus even when provincial governments were being run by hand picked people of Islamabad.

The second NFC was set up in June 2006. But before it could ever hold a formal meeting, President Musharraf called a meeting of chief ministers of four provinces and obtained powers to give on his own a national resources distribution formula.

“There is a consensus among Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP that Musharraf’s formula inflicted a massive financial loss,” the PPP leader said.

Even though, the PML(N) has opted to quit the coalition and sit on Opposition benches in the National Assembly, there are party people in Karachi, who are confident that Punjab will now go for a multiple criteria in NFC. “There may be some difference on weights to be given to poverty, inverse population density and revenue generation efforts but by and large politicians in Punjab do not oppose to make NFC a multi-criteria affair,” a local PML (N) activist said.