MULTAN, Nov 20: The Multan district government will finalize its recommendations in a couple of weeks regarding the tax sharing formula between the provincial and local governments.

This was stated by district Nazim Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi while addressing a meeting of the revenue officers of the district on Tuesday. He directed them to finalize their proposals as soon as possible.

Mr Qureshi observed that the new formula was necessary to avoid conflict between the province and districts.

He underlined the need to speed up recovery of the ADBP dues. He directed the revenue officials to submit a comparative statement of ADBP recoveries in Multan and its adjoining districts of Khanewal, Lodhran, Muzaffargarh and Vehari.

“I want to know why Multan has been lagging behind in the recovery campaign,” he added.

It was decided in the meeting that to facilitate farmers, the patwaris would be present from 8am to 3pm every Tuesday at the union council headquarter of their respective areas along with the relevant record. The revenue officers and qanoongos were directed to remain present in their respective circles twice a month.

The meeting was told that the Agriculture Development Bank of Pakistan would disburse Rs420.600 million in Multan district under its one window operation for the rabi season. For the purpose some 24 points had been set up in the district to advance loans to the farmers on every Monday and Tuesday. It was also decided that the ADBP authorities and federal finance ministry would be approached to convince them to not to link disbursement of loans with recovery of arrears. They would be suggested that loans should be extended to those farmers who did not owe anything to the bank.

District coordination officer Azam Suleman told the meeting that buildings of only five of the 215 patwarkhanas of the district were in good condition.

The buildings of remaining offices needed immediate repair, he said.