KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak vehemently rejected the increase in the natural gas tariff by saying is inimical gesture by the federal government and forced injustice to the progress of KP which is already in the quagmire of under development and multi faceted challenges.
Talking to different delegations of trading community at CM Secretariat Peshawar, he said the federal budget is pro for one province but anti for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular that is hub of energy in oil, gas and hydel powers resources but still lacks proper industrial base. "The federal government should have showered incentives for the revival of sick industrial units in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in order to boost the economy of the province but instead it did not give any space to the province to move forward and there is lack of vision by the centre to put this province towards sustain economic growth", he added. This budget, he said, is pro Punjab budget and therefore it is bound to create problems for the business community of our province that will further push us to backwardness.
He said that the increase in GIDC is not only illegal but attempt to harm the economy of smaller provinces. He said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has already taken strong view of the earlier imposition of GIDC which was introduced @ Rs 13 only while now its rate has been enhanced to Rs 300 which is over 2000% increase having no match of the injustice even in the past. He said KP is net producer of gas which is sufficient for the use within the province. There is not contribution or additional development requirement for any infrastructure development and if there is any that is covered in the existing GIDC.
He said industries of our province are already suffering due to war on terror and location disadvantage. He regretted that the present move will cripple the entire industrial and commercial expansion plans of the present provincial government.
He said this is also a move to deprive our industries of the local and indigenous resources as well. "This move is also tantamount to sabotage the ongoing industrial development plans in the province", he asserted. He strongly demanded for with-drawl of the proposed GIDC in larger interest of the federation.
The traders community told him that the business community side by side with the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has rejected increase in gas surcharge and tariff as proposed in the annual budget for financial year 2014-15 and has termed it injustice to the terrorism-hit province. The businessmen and industrialists of the province further said that the terror-hit province had been merely ignored and termed it as 'Punjab development budget', lacking any incentives or relief for the terror hit business community of the province. The new budget, reflecting a deficit of Rs 14 billion of the total layout of the budgetary allocations for financial year 2014-15, is not a growth oriented.
Pervez Khattak agreed with the view points that the new budget, reflecting deficit of Rs 14 billion, was not growth oriented. The tax revenue target of Rs 2,810 billion set in the budget was also unrealistic, he said. "Like the business community, I also had great expectations from federal government to give a special incentive to terror and floods affected people of the province, but it ignored KP", he said.
Comments
Comments are closed.