ISLAMABAD, May 16: Sindh has indicated its willingness to accept Punjab's stand about distribution of general sales tax on the basis of population instead of audited accounts under the sixth National Finance Commission award.

However, Sindh hopes that the principle of giving revenue collection some weightage in the horizontal distribution of resources would be accepted. The province has agreed to three or four per cent weightage being given to revenue collection instead of its original demand of five per cent.

An NFC member told Dawn on Sunday that Punjab and Sindh finance departments' officials would meet in Lahore on Monday to thrash out their differences on the two issues.Punjab and the NWFP want the distribution of the GST on the basis of population but Sindh and Balochistan want it based on annual audited accounts.

The Punjab government is of the view that some invisible factors, like contractors' salaries, are part of octroi revenues, which are not represented on audited accounts.

On the basis of audited accounts, Punjab's share in Rs40 billion collected as GST is about 43 per cent and that of Sindh is 46 per cent. Sindh has shown willingness to accept Punjab's view because it involves a few million rupees but it wants revenue collection to be given weightage.

The member said: "It was not the money that matters, because the difference would not be in billions of rupees, but it is the principle that should be accepted."

An NFC member said Sindh had told the informal NFC meeting in Islamabad last week that the province should not be pushed to the wall because it was already annoyed over the treatment meted out to it on many issues, including financial and water affairs. But, he said, Punjab and the NWFP were adamant on resisting the inclusion of revenue collection in the distribution criteria.

The member said pressure on the provinces had multiplied since last week because of the federal government's refusal to give more than 47 per cent share to them because of higher needs for defence, civil expenditure and debt repayment.