ISLAMABAD, Sept 7: The Balochistan government is in serious crisis and is finding it difficult to meet its running expenditure owing to over Rs5 billion arrears held up by the centre.

Balochistan's Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah, currently in Islamabad, says he is running from pillar to post to ensure some financing arrangement to meet the government's expenditures.

The provincial government has asked the centre to release its Rs5 billion arrears and double its grant from Rs4 billion to Rs8 billion till the resolution of the NFC issue to provide some relief.

He told Dawn here on Tuesday that Balochistan's overdraft had crossed Rs9 billion mark. The minister said that he had held a meeting with State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Ishrat Hussain on the subject on Monday, but of no avail.

The SBP governor had declined to provide further overdraft to Balochistan, said Mr Shah. However, the finance minister said that he had had a meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz a few days ago and was assured that the province would get some help, but did not explain how.

Mr Shah said the Rs9 billion overdraft was an accumulation of the ODs the provincial governments had been obtaining from time to time for years, mainly because of non-payment of gas related revenues by the federal government which currently stood at over Rs5 billion.

He said if the federal government released Balochistan's Rs5 billion held up with the ministry of petroleum and natural resources, most of the problems of the province would be resolved.

He said the provincial government was finding it difficult to meet the running expenditure amounting to about Rs2.9 billion per month. Balochistan expects that a just and fair distribution of development surcharge on natural gas under the new national finance commission award could relieve it of the financial difficulties once and for all.

Balochistan believes its share of the GDS could increase from Rs4 billion to about Rs8 billion per annum. However, it has not been able to convince the Sindh government to change the existing formula on sharing of the GDS that currently favours Sindh.