Punjab Finance Minister, Sardar Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak has said that representatives of all the four provinces would meet in a week's time to deliberate upon 6th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, and hopefully budget for the next fiscal would be announced under this award. "Consensus had already been developed on the proposal of dividing resources amongst the provinces as well as Federation on 50-50 basis, while decision is still to be made on further division of these resources amongst the provinces," Dareshak told newsmen at his office here on Tuesday. The Minister maintained that the NFC Award was a very sensitive issue and Punjab did not want to take any step, which could provide an opportunity to others to say that the NFC award was delayed due to it.
He said that Punjab did not want to hurt interests of any other province and it would fully protect the interests and rights of its people, adding that in the last deliberation, no province supported the proposal of division of resources on revenue collection basis.
He further said that 50 percent to be given to the provinces by the Federation, which included all the subsidies, subventions and 2.5 percent of the GST collection.
He revealed that representatives of Sindh and Balochistan held meeting on Tuesday and all the provinces would have a round of deliberation, hopefully in Lahore.
However, the Minister said nothing had been finalised in this regard. He was of the view that the Prime Minister and all the provinces wish to have this award at the earliest and premier had asked the provinces to narrow down their differences on the NFC Award.
He said that he was optimistic that some solution would be worked out soon, adding that this issue would be settled on the basis of 'give and take' and provinces had to show elasticity.
Talking about utilisation of developmental budget in the province, he said that last year Punjab achieved 85 percent utilisation of the developmental fund and hoping to touch 90 percent figure in the current financial year.
He said that priority of the government would be on social sector, including education, health and provision of clean drinking water.
The Minister said that they would rationalise the taxes in forthcoming budget and steps would also be taken that taxes should affect only those who could pay and not those who were poor.
Nevertheless, he said as meeting of provincial departments for specific proposals regarding the taxation was yet to be convened, which usually held 15 to 20 days before the budget, he was not able to say anything more.
He said that this meeting would be held in next two or three days, added that it would be our effort to save the poor from any burden.
Regarding Ghazi Barotha issue, he said Punjab had taken up the issue in the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC). He said that Punjab would get royalty on the basis of formula on which NWFP was given royalty.
He disclosed that from next financial year, districts would collect 'Urban immovable property tax', instead of province.
To various questions, he said that they got money from the Federation in the current fiscal year under the head of GST share or others according to the target.
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