THE issue of how the federation distributes its resources has never been a technical one. It has always been tied to questions of equity, inclusion and long-standing neglect.

I was in parliament when the seventh NFC Award was finalised in 2010 — a rare moment in our legislative history where the federation and provinces reached genuine consensus on the distribution of national resources. For decades, the people of Fata had received per capita development funds far below the national average, a disparity quantified by the Sartaj Aziz committee at roughly 44 per cent, reflecting a structural pattern of exclusion. Marked by alienation, Fata had long remained a periphery of the state.

The seventh NFC Award, constitutionally effective from 2010 to 2015, is still in force. It has been extended year after year in violation of Article 160 of the Constitution, which requires a fresh award every five years. Then came 2018. The 25th Constitutional Amendment merged Fata with KP with promises that finance would follow function and that the merged districts would, within a generation, be brought at par with the rest of the country. We are now on the eleventh extension. The framework that governs the distribution of national revenue considers three and a half provinces only and does not recognise the merged districts. The Award, as it stands today, is ultra vires the Constitution. The award should have been updated on June 1, 2018, to reflect Pakistan’s new constitutional geography.

Responsibility is not difficult to fix. The PTI bears maximum blame: holding power simultaneously in Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore between 2018 and 2022, it had the time, authority and means to revise the Award but did nothing. The PDM coalition that followed was no different. Today, under a PML-N-led government, the same assurances are offered and the same inertia prevails. Words change with the government; the waiting does not.

The people of Fata never received the promised inclusion.

The arithmetic is unambiguous. The Fata Reforms Committee recommended an NFC allocation of 3pc of the federal divisible pool annually for the 10-year development plan. Against the Rs2.2 trillion recommended, KP has received less than half and that too largely absorbed by current expenditure, leaving practically nothing for transformative development. On top of this, Rs964bn that rightfully constituted Fata’s share has, over the last seven years, been distributed among the other provinces — resources transferred to those who had no legitimate claim over them.

Nothing tangible has accrued to the merged districts. The security situation today is worse than it was in 2008. The writ of the state is contested. Schools destroyed during operations remain unreconstructed. Health facilities are inadequate. The fiscal response has been modest; about Rs200bn only over eight years for development. The federal grant of 1pc of the divisible pool, extended to KP in lieu of losses sustained during the war on terrorism, is inadequate and must be revised upward to at least 2pc — not as a concession, but as an obligation to those who bore the heaviest cost of a war they never chose.

When the 25th Amendment came before parliament, Punjab and Sindh representatives voted in its favour. That vote came with obligations attached. Constitutional inclusion cannot be selectively applied and extended when convenient. If the merger was worth voting for, then the financial integration it demands is worth honouring. I support the KP government’s walkout from the NFC subgroup meeting, but cannot condone its inaction from 2018 to 2022. The matter of NFC shows a familiar pattern in our politics: questions that appear urgent in op­­­position often prove negotiable in power. The Award requires immedia­­te revision, and the constitutional share of the districts must be provided in full. Over the past eight years, over Rs1tr in their rightful share has not been transferred. In these circumstances, the NFC entitlement alone cannot address the position as it now stands. An additional allocation of at least Rs2tr will be required to compensate for decades of underfinancing. This arises from the obligations of the state itself.

Article 160 is not a suggestion. It is a binding obligation of the state. A framework that has persisted for 15 years is not merely overdue for revision. It is non-compliant to the Constitution. The people of Fata were promised inclusion. What they received was a constitutional amendment and, in its wake, continuing fiscal silence of nearly a decade. The debt that remains is more than financial; it is constitutional, moral and long due. The state that merged these districts into its mainstream cannot, in the same breath, exclude them from its resources. That contradiction must end — not in the next award, not in the next government, but now.

The writer is a former parliamentarian and minister.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2026