PESHAWAR, May 20: The NWFP government may miss the annual target of the provincial own receipts with a big margin after achieving about 55 per cent of the total annual revenue target during the first ten months of the current financial year, according to official sources.

Out of the total Rs3,664.7 million annual target of provincial own receipts (PORs), the province raised about Rs2bn during the July-April period of the 2002-03 financial year.

The revenue makes about 55 per cent of the total annual PORs target, leaving the provincial government to raise another amount of over Rs1.5bn during the last two months of the current fiscal year to meet the annual target.

However, official sources said the province was set to miss the PORs target with a big gap in continuation with the last several years.

On proportionate basis, the province should have raised Rs3bn in ten months - a target missed by around Rs1bn in view of the actual recoveries made under several of the PORs’ tax and non-tax heads.

Provincial government recorded massive revenue shortfall under the important heads of abiana, land tax and agriculture income tax, motor vehicle tax, urban immovable property tax, stamp duty, fees for registration for real estate dealers and arms licence fee.

“Heavy shortfall has been recorded in almost all the important heads of PORs,” said a senior government functionary, requesting anonymity.

The provincial finance managers of the last military-backed civil government had set ‘unrealistically’ high target of growth in the tax and non-tax receipts heads of the provincial government in the 2002-03 financial year under a multi-billion loan agreement with the World Bank.

However, all those targets remained a far cry in view of the persistent poor show put up by the provincial revenue collection machinery during the 2002-03 financial year, said the sources.

“Rate of growth determined for several of the PORs heads could not be achieved, rather, the benchmarks set under the medium term budgetary framework - submitted to the World Bank under the loan agreement - did not see the light of the day,” said the officer.

The issue also came under discussion during the recently held meetings between the representatives of the provincial government and members of the World Bank’s review mission - currently visiting NWFP to review the implementation of the loan agreement.