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B'stan suffers Rs 6,987m shortfall in NFC award

LAILA A ALI

QUETTA: The Balochistan government has a shortfall of Rs 6,987 million in its receipts from the federal government under the NFC award to be taken up at the NFC Award Monitoring Committee (AMC) meeting scheduled for two days at Islamabad starting from March 14.

Sources informed a group of newsmen here on Saturday that this shortfall was persisting since the fiscal year 1997-98. The federal government budgeted Rs 14,869 million against the NFC projection of Rs 16,985 million, showing a shortfall of Rs 2,116 million in 1997-98.

During 1998-99, the shortfall shot to Rs 2,408 million, as Islamabad budgeted Rs 16,982 million against the projected amount of Rs 19,390 million for Quetta.

Similarly, the shortfall has surged to Rs 2,463 million in the first half (from July to December 99) of the current financial year 1999-2000.

During this six months period Balochistan has received Rs 8,621 million against the NFC projection of Rs 11,084 million. During two-and-a-half years, Balochistan has received total Rs 40,472 million out of projected amount of Rs 47,459 million, showing a total shortfall of Rs 6,987 million.

These sources confirmed that at the forthcoming NFC award monitoring committee meeting, Balochistan government would present its point of view and press for meeting the existing shortfall of Rs 6,987 million by a special package, either before the fall of current financial year FY 1999-2000 or beginning of next financial year 2000-2001.

A working paper is also under preparation for presenting Balochistan's point of view on the four-point agenda; implementation of 1996, NFC's recommendations; review of NFC's AMC previous meetings; federal transfers and receipts/expenditure for FY 98-99(7/98 to 6/99) and current FY 99-2000, and payment of net hydel profit to the government of the NWFP and Punjab.