ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday notified the revival of Rs120 billion Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) on gas consumers with retrospective effect and declared the data about 3.2 million potential taxpayers as ‘flawed’.

Speaking at a briefing along with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, finance minister Ishaq Dar said Pakistan had achieved all the milestones agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by Dec 31, 2013, and would immediately invite the IMF for a fresh quarterly review.

Responding to a question if the government had also met the deadline of raising 0.4pc fresh revenue in the form of gas levy, the finance minister said that the recovery of GIDC had been suspended by Peshawar High Court early this year.

The federal government had challenged it in Supreme Court and the apex court has set aside the high court decision, resulting in the revival of GIDC.

“This will generate about Rs125bn that comes to about 0.4pc of the GDP,” he said.

Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Dawn that the government had issued a fresh notification regarding revival of the GIDC with some changes in its rates.

A senior petroleum ministry official said that under the fresh notification, the government has also increased GIDC rates for fertiliser sector and entire industrial sector, including captive power plants.

He said the government had collected a couple of billions of rupees in July this year when Peshawar High Court suspended its collection.He said that under the previous arrangement, fertiliser feedstock was charged Rs197 per mmbtu of natural gas which has now been increased to Rs300 per mmbtu.

Likewise, the GIDC on gas rates to industry and CPPs that stood at Rs50 per mmbtu has now been doubled to Rs100 per mmbtu. These two changes will generate an additional revenue of Rs30bn, he explained.

The official also explained that the revival of the GIDC would start from the date it was suspended by the Peshawar High Court as gas companies had been instructed not to collect the amount from consumers but keep billing them so that it can calculate the liability on consumers at the time of final decision by the apex court.

“We were 100pc sure about our case that GIDC would stand revived,” he said.

While domestic and commercial consumers would continue to be exempt from this charge, the GIDC on other consumers has been kept unchanged.

The power companies, like Wapda plants, KESC and IPPs, would be charged Rs100 per mmbtu as GIDC while CNG stations in region-I (KPK and Balochistan) and region-II (Sindh and Punjab) would be charged at Rs200 per mmbtu and Rs263 per mmbtu, respectively.

Responding to a question, the finance minister said NADRA’s data about 3.2 million potentially big taxpayers was flawed and perhaps purposefully build up to provide tax amnesty for whitening of black money.

“We cannot allow theft money be whitened and then allow thieves to steal more money,” said the finance minister and added that the PML-N government introduced an investment scheme for revival of industrial sector.

The finance minister said the government would deliver $16bn foreign exchange reserves by Dec 31, 2014, although he had set a target of $20bn, from the current level of about $8.5bn.

This would be in the form of $1bn as Eurobond, $1bn remittance-based bonds to Pakistanis abroad, $1bn as divestment of shares of public sector companies through stock exchanges, $1.2 to $2bn as proceeds of sale of telecom spectrum licences, $1.5bn as reimbursement from US for coalition support, and $800m as Etisalat proceeds.

On the project and trade finance side, the minister said the World Bank would provide $700m, ADB to provide $900m, China Exim Bank $6.478bn, Islamic Development Bank $1.5bn in three years and Japan International Cooperation Agency $2bn for Karachi Circular Railway.

Moreover, the International Finance Commission had increased credit line from $1bn to $3bn for private sector while Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) had increased credit line from $500m to $1.5bn.

He said the government was pursuing energy sector projects that would increase country’s generation capacity from 14,000MW now to 36,130MW in slightly over five years.