The provinces have literally missed the opportunity of getting more share from the divisible pool as they could not reach any consensus for distribution of resources in the sixth NFC Award. The policy-makers here believe that hardly any time is left now for the parties to reach some understanding on the new NFC Award before the annual budget 2005-06. They said that the provinces would get share from the divisible pool under the fifth NFC Award. One of the policy-makers, on the condition of anonymity, during his informal talk with Business Recorder here on Wednesday, held the provinces responsible for lingering on the controversy by showing indifferent attitude on the issue.
He claimed that despite best efforts the federal government could not bring the provinces on board for the sixth NFC Award.
He said, "One cannot believe that the provinces could not meet even once in one full year to discuss NFC Award issue, which could have brought them more resources from the divisible pool."
He denied that the controversy was between the centre and the provinces and said it is deplorable that some circles are creating an impression that the federal government was not ready to give concession to the provinces for additional share in the sixth NFC Award.
He said disagreement among the provinces was the real cause of delay in formulation of the sixth NFC Award. He said that Punjab stood apart from the rest of the provinces and wanted continuation of existing population-based formula for the new award.
Other three provinces disagree with Punjab that population should be the sole criteria for the sixth NFC Award, but differ with each other on the issues of revenue, backwardness and area.
Sindh supports the idea of population and revenue for distribution of resources among the provinces. Its representative argued that the provinces having better revenue should get more share from the divisible pool.
Balochistan advocates the idea of population, area and backwardness and demands that these three principles should be made basic criteria for the sixth NFC Award so that less developed provinces get more resources to address the issues of rising poverty and unemployment effectively.
NWFP agrees with Balochistan on two terms, backwardness and population, but disagrees on the area.
The federal government has offered 47.5 percent of resources to the provinces and they are almost agreeable to this equation, but differences among themselves have made things difficult to resolve.
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