PESHAWAR: The caretaker chief minister, Mohammad Azam Khan, has said that provincial government is adhering to strict financial discipline to reduce its expenditures.

He was talking to the participants of 25th National Security Workshop of National Defence University, who called on him here on Thursday, according to a statement.

Maj Gen Raza Aizad from National Defence University, Islamabad, Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhary, additional chief secretaries Mohammad Abid Majeed and Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah and Finance Secretary Amir Sultan Tareen were also present on the occasion.

The chief minister said that due to huge recruitments during the previous tenures, the budget of salaries and pensions of provincial departments and public sector universities increased manifolds.

The provincial governments as well as higher educational institutes were facing financial crunches as major chunk of budget was spent on salaries and pensions, he added.

He that due to decades-long instability in the region, the province, especially the erstwhile tribal belt, was badly affected, resulting in law and order situation, poor economy and slow-paced development.

Mr Khan said that commitments made by federal government and federating units with regard to the fast track development of the merged districts at the time of merger were not fulfilled. He said that the province was not getting its due share in various federal transfers including NFC award, net hydel profit and oil and gas royalty due to which provincial government was facing financial crunch.

The participants were briefed about the overall security situation, administrative and financial affairs and development portfolio of the province. It was said that profiling of non-custom paid vehicles in merged districts and Malakand division was in progress. The participants were told that law enforcement agencies made significant achievements in the operation against terrorism and illegal spectrum.

It was said that development outlay of settled areas consisted of 1,505 projects with a total cost of Rs1,794 billion. Similarly, the development portfolio of the merged districts consists of 686 projects with estimated cost of Rs897 billion.

The province is mostly dependent on federal transfers for its revenues as 94 per cent of its revenue comes from various federal receipts. After the merger of erstwhile Fata into KP, the population of the province has increased but its share in NFC award has not been increased accordingly.

As per the existing population, the share of province in NFC award has reached 19.6 per cent of the total but it is getting only 14.6 per cent.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2023