PESHAWAR, May 18: The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have been receiving funds for development activities much less than their proportionate basis share in the total population of the special areas of the country, according to official sources.
Among the areas officially granted the status of special areas, Fata houses 46 per cent, Azad Kashmir 42 per cent whereas remaining 12 per cent of the special areas’ population lives in the Northern Areas of the country.
Despite involving the highest ratio of population among the special areas, Fata has never received funds enough to improve social services and infrastructure, resultantly, according to sources, tribal areas appear to be the most backward among the special areas of the country.
Whereas resource distribution among the provinces is made on population basis in accordance with the National Finance Commission Awards, distribution of development funds among the special areas, said the sources, had never been on population basis.
On the average, said the sources, Fata had been receiving about 25 per cent of the total development funds distributed among the special areas.
Whereas, Azad Kashmir receives about 52 per cent of the total funds with a 46 per cent share of population in the total number of people living in the special areas.
The remaining 22 per cent of the development funds, according to sources, are diverted to Northern Areas which house only 12 per cent of the total population of the special areas.
According to official data available with Dawn, roads per square kilometre in Fata happens to be the lowest when compared with the settled parts of the country and that of special areas.
On the same pattern, population per hospital bed in Fata comes to highest when compared with the statistics of the NWFP and Pakistan. So is the case with the literacy rate, area under forests and population per irrigated hectare which is as high as 32 in the case of Fata when compared with 21 in the NWFP and seven in the entire Pakistan.
Housing a total population of 3.5 million people, Fata received Rs981m for development purposes in the 1996-97 financial year, Rs850m in the 1997-98 financial year, Rs1,048m in the 1998-99 financial year, Rs1,047m in the 1999-2000 financial year, Rs1,150m in the 2000-01 financial year whereas an allocation of Rs1,170m has been made for the current financial year.
According to sources, the money released since 1996-97 for carrying out development activities in Fata appeared to be much less than the financial allocations that had been made at the start of every financial year.
Not only that Fata has been receiving less amount of annual development funds, it has been experiencing inequity in the distribution of development funds through successive five-year plans, specially the 6th, 7th and 8th five-year plans.
Although the federal government, said the sources, had allocated Rs10bn to be spent on development activities in Fata during the next four years, the allocations made for Fata for the next 10 years appear to be much less than the financial projections made for the other special areas for the same period.