PESHAWAR, Aug 5: In a rare escape from the past, the NWFP government’s cash balance has gone over Rs7 billion mark, enabling it to start the new financial year with a sound note, according to the official sources.

“This is for the first time after several years that the NWFP government has started the new financial year with a cash balance of such magnitude,” said a provincial government officer while talking to Dawn.

Last year, according to the sources, the NWFP government had a carry forward amount of over Rs2 billion.

However, growth recorded by the provincial government’s cash balance is mainly due to release of Rs5.69 billion loan tranche by the World Bank. The bank has extended the loan facility under its Structural Adjustment Credit (SAC) facility.

The province received an amount of $95 million as World Bank loan during the second fortnight of the first month of the new financial year, providing an extraordinary fiscal space to the provincial government.

Apart from the Rs5.69 billion loan released to the province, around Rs2 billion carry forward funds helped the NWFP government to have a total cash balance of well over Rs7 billion.

The provincial government managed to have a carry forward funds of around Rs2 billion at the start of the new financial year after having gone through a serious financial crisis during the last fiscal year at the hands of Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

Wapda released Rs4.29 billion to NWFP in the last month of the fiscal 2001-02 after keeping the province deprived of its net hydel profit share for most part of the last financial year.

The province was supposed to receive Rs6 billion capped share amount from Wapda on account of net hydel profit share. Against that the province received only Rs1.71 billion during the first 11 months of the financial year 2001-02 whereas the remaining amount — Rs4.29 billion — was released in the last 15 days of that fiscal year.

The bulk of the money released to the province during the last 15 days of the last financial year helped the provincial government to clear some of its liabilities and carry forward the remaining money to start the new financial year.