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PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is likely to reach an agreement with Water and Power Development Authority on annual net hydel profit hoping for a substantial increase in its share.
According to the relevant officials, the province's annual net hydel profit capped at Rs6 billion since early 1990s possibly will very probably reach Rs19 billion.
“It'll come at the cost of foregoing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's long-held stand on the methodology that was approved by the Council of Common Interest in 1991-92 for determining the provinces' hydel profit share, fulfilling the Constitutional requirement,” a source told Dawn on Monday. Dawn Dawn
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's member in National Finance Commission Senator Haji Adeel, who is a senior Awami National Party member, told that negotiations were underway between the provincial government and Wapda to resolve the issue once and for all.“The AGN Kazi committee's formula is not being given up. A way out (of the prolonged stalemate) is being worked out,” he told on Monday.
Mr Adeel said the province would not lose financially under the new arrangement as the basis (for calculating the annual share) would remain the same.
Terming it as an achievement of the provincial government, senior provincial minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour told industrialists during a function in Peshawar of late that the province's annual hydel profit share was about to grow 150 per cent from the current Rs6 billion.
According to officials, representatives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Wapda held a series of meetings in Islamabad in December last year under the auspices of the federal government to resolve their prolonged dispute on net hydel profit.
“The last of the meetings was held on December 26, 2011, after which the resolution of the stalemate appears to be a possibility,” said an official requesting anonymity.
Sources, however, said the ANP-led government had consented to give up the province's insistence on using the AGN Kazi committee's methodology for calculation of the provinces' hydel profit share (concerning hydropower units operated by Wapda in provinces).
Led by then senior bureaucrat AGN Kazi, the special committee had determined the formula in 1987-88 for calculating the provinces' hydel profit share against the income recorded by the public sector hydropower units set up in any of the federating units.
The formula was granted a nod of approved by CCI in 1991-92 after which the successive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments insisted on its application to determine the hydel profit share against hydropower generated at Tarbela and three small units.
Under the Kazi committee's methodology, according to an official, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's net hydel profit share for the current financial year is around Rs45 billion.
“Even the arbitration tribunal that accepted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's stand against Wapda in 2004-05, had determined the province's hydel profit share for 2004-05 financial year at Rs24 billion,” he said.
The official said the province's consent to the Rs19 billion annual profit share wasn't sensible as the arbitration tribunal fixed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's share for financial year 2004-05 at Rs24 billion.
Mr Adeel, however, said certain proposals were under consideration to resolve the issue.
“The province has proposed that it be given two to three hydropower projects by Wapda in compensation,” he said, adding that another proposal was that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's outstanding loans of Rs125 billion payable to the federal government should be adjusted out of the arrears payable to it by Wapda.
The province has a claim of around Rs350 billion against Wapda on account of arrears of net profit since 2004-05 (for the period after the arbitration tribunal's decision).
