ISLAMABAD, June 12: The federal government will provide Rs1.5 trillion to the provinces during the next financial year as their share in the federal taxes, budget documents reveal.

This means a significant expansion in the federal divisible pool, from last year’s Rs1.2tr to Rs1.5tr, despite the poor economic indicators.

Funds are distributed among the provinces as per a formula set by the National Finance Commission (NFC).

According to the NFC formula, Punjab gets 51.7 per cent of the funds, followed by Sindh’s share of 24.5 per cent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s 14.6 per cent and Balochistan’s 9 per cent.

The distribution formula for the federal divisible pool has been worked out on the basis of population (assigned weightage of 82 per cent), poverty or backwardness (10.3 per cent), capability for revenue collection (5 per cent) and inverse population density (2.7 per cent).

As population is the main factor, Punjab gets the lion’s share.

Going by this formula, of the Rs1.503tr to be distributed among the provinces, Punjab will get Rs708.7bn, Sindh Rs400bn, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rs251.5bn and Balochistan Rs141bn under this head.