PESHAWAR, Nov 28: NWFP raised over Rs790 million through its tax and non-tax components of the provincial own receipts (PORs) during the first three months of the current financial year, according to official sources.

The funds collectively raised under several of tax and non-tax heads of the PORs make about 22 per cent of the total annual target the military backed provincial government had fixed for the financial year 2002-03.

Though the province started the new financial year with a good note by raising over Rs790 million during the first quarter of the current financial year, still it is trailing behind the amount it should have raised during that period on proportionate basis.

Out of Rs3.67 billion total annual target on account of PORs, the province was supposed to raise Rs916 million on proportionate basis during the first three months of the current fiscal.

However, the NWFP government officials told Dawn they attached extra hopes about the province’s chances of recording substantial improvement in the over all collections of PORs by end of the year.

Improvement in PORs collections would be necessary for the new-elected provincial government in line with the outgoing NWFP government’s commitments with the World Bank which has provided NWFP a credit line of $95 million for the financial year 2002-03.

On various occasions the NWFP governor and the outgoing provincial finance manager have said the continuation of the three-year rollover programme would depend on the future provincial government’s ability to continue the reforms programme in various sectors, including education, health, economy, provincial finance, etc.

“The PORs make integral part of the reform programme and the new government is required to make significant improvement under various heads of provincial receipts, especially agriculture income tax, abiana, fuel toll tax, etc,” admitted a senior government functionary.

Despite missing the agriculture income tax target for the financial year 2001-02, the outgoing NWFP government has committed 34.7 per cent growth in this tax during the three fiscal years — reflected under the medium term budgetary framework submitted to the World Bank to qualify for the multi-million dollar loan.

Over all the outgoing provincial government has committed an eight per cent annual growth in the proceeds from provincial taxes and 70 per cent in its receipts through use charges during the next three financial years — setting a really tough target for the new government.

The quantum of user charges would be increased from Rs1.457 billion in the 2002-03 financial year to Rs1.66 billion in the financial year 2003-04, Rs1.9 billion in 2004-05, and taking it up to Rs2.05 billion in the financial year 2005-06.

Similarly, the outgoing provincial government has committed to increase provincial earnings through taxes every passing year for the next four financial years from Rs1.62 billion in 2002-03 to Rs1.8 billion in 2003-04, Rs1.94 billion in 2004-05, and Rs2.1 billion in 2005-06.

All these benchmarks appear to be a daunting task to achieve during the given period of time in view of the unimpressive performance the tax collection machinery has been putting during the last several years.