ISLAMABAD, May 4: The federal government has projected total size of the net proceeds of the divisible pool at Rs538-540 billion excluding Rs27 billion collection charges for the next year (2004-05) under the sixth National Finance Commission (NFC) award, Dawn has learnt.

Accordingly, the provinces have been told that their share under the 'population plus multi-dimensional criteria' would be around Rs253 billion on the basis of 47 per cent share offered to them recently, informed sources said.

The centre has also indicated through unofficial channels to move up the provinces share to 48 per cent if they converge on any of the seven formulae for horizontal distribution of resources presented by the federal government. This means the centre could give over Rs258 billion to the provinces.

A provincial minister told Dawn that federal government had now also provided the size of each province's share on the basis of their 47 per cent provincial share and seven formulae having various weightages to population, revenue generation, backwardness and inverse population density (IPD).

Under first option, Punjab's share has been estimated at Rs125 billion, followed by Sindh at Rs61 billion, NWFP at Rs37 billion and Balochistan at Rs29 billion.

The second formula offers Rs132 billion to Punjab, Rs63 billion to Sindh, Rs38 billion to NWFP and Rs19 billion to Balochistan. Third formula envisaged Rs136 billion to Punjab, Rs64 billion to Sindh, Rs35 billion to NWFP and Rs18 billion to Balochistan.

Under the fourth formula, Punjab would get Rs130 billion, Sindh Rs63 billion, NWFP Rs35 billion and Balochistan Rs25 billion. The fifth formula estimates Punjab's share at Rs135 billion, followed by Sindh at Rs64 billion, NWFP at Rs36 billion and Balochistan at Rs19 billion.

The sixth formula puts the share of Punjab at Rs134 billion, followed by Sindh at Rs64 billion, NWFP at Rs36 billion and Rs19 billion for Balochistan. The seventh option provides Rs134 billion to Punjab, Rs60 billion to Sindh, Rs34 billion to NWFP and Rs25 billion to Balochistan.

The first option will have 80 per cent, 10 per cent, six per cent and four per cent weight to population, backwardness, inverse population density (IPD) and revenue collection respectively. This would give 53.39 per cent, 25.06 per cent, 14.31 per cent and 7.42 per cent to Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and respectively.

As such Punjab would lose 3.97 per cent compared to its current share of 57.36 per cent. Sindh's share would increase by 1.35 per cent from its existing share of 23.71 per cent. NWFP's share would go up by 0.49 per cent from its existing share of 13.82 per cent while Balochistan would get 2.31 per cent higher than its current share of 5.11 per cent.

The second option gives 85 per cent, 10 per cent, one per cent and four per cent weight to population, backwardness, IPD and revenue collection respectively. In this case, Punjab's share would drop by 8.04 per cent. The shares of Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan would increase by 0.51 per cent, 1.01 per cent and 6.49 per cent respectively.

The third option envisaged 90 per cent weight to population, four per cent each to backwardness and revenue collection and two per cent to IPD. In this case, Punjab would lose by 5.39 per cent while Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan would benefit by 1.33 per cent, 1.42 per cent and 2.64 per cent respectively.

The fourth option provides for 85 per cent weight to population and five per cent each to three other factors. As such, Punjab would get 53.53 per cent, Sindh 25.07 per cent, NWFP 14.07 per cent and Balochistan 7.33 per cent.

The fifth option offers 88.35 per cent weightage to population, followed by 5.75 per cent to backwardness, 4.15 per cent to revenue collection and 1.75 per cent to IPD. This formula promised 51.25 per cent to Punjab, 24.99 per cent to Sindh, 13.95 per cent to NWFP and 9.81 per cent to Balochistan.

The sixth option envisages 87.8 per cent to population while poverty, IPD and revenue would get six per cent, two per cent and 4.2 per cent share respectively. Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan would get their share in the order of 53 per cent, 25.12 per cent, 14.40 per cent and 7.48 per cent.

The seventh option gives 90 per cent weight to population. Backwardness would get two per cent while IPD and revenue collection would get four per cent weight each.

In this case, the share of Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan has been projected at 52.76 per cent, 22.09 per cent, 14.42 per cent and 7.72 per cent respectively.