Punjab Finance Minister, Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, has said that provinces have no differences over new National Finance Commission Award (NFC) and all provinces are going in a right direction regarding distribution of fiscal resources. While talking to a group of journalists here on Thursday, the minister said that there has been a positive development on the award and most of the issues have been settled among the provinces.
"All provinces wanted increase in the share of the divisible pool. The announcement of the NFC Award would help dispense with the sense of deprivation among the provinces and promote harmony," he added. According to him, the impression that award was based on population alone is wrong. Punjab has a 57 percent share in the population but 47 percent share in resources.
No doubt population based resource distribution formula is a strong base, but Punjab is ready to negotiate on other bases, too, like poverty. New NFC Award would be announced in a democratic manners and all rights of the provinces would be protected in this Award because they are all well aware of each other's problems. They want to distribute resources among provinces on the basis of judicious formula and there should not be discrimination among provinces regarding distribution of financial resources.