Sindh lays claim to all the revenues being collected at Karachi Port and demands corresponding weightage in NFC award
LAHORE: The Sindh chief minister has complained that gas produced in Sindh is being diverted to Punjab without fully meeting the needs of Sindh. Similarly, Balochistan will say that it will meet its needs fully before giving any Sui gas to the rest of the country. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) representatives are already saying that they are generating 4,000 megawatts but not getting the 1,700 megawatts that they need from the national grid. Next, Azad Kashmir will say it will utilise all the water from the Mangla Dam before releasing any water downstream. Mangla and Tarbela dams were not built by the AJK or by the K-P governments but by the centre from the taxpayers’ money, so how can they claim prior right? Similarly, the development of oil and gas fields all over the country is federally-funded for the use of the whole nation. Will Sindh claim all the power from the Thar coal field, which is being funded from the federal budget? Already Sindh lays claim to all the revenues being collected at Karachi Port and demands corresponding weightage in the National Finance Commission award. Will Balochistan also claim disproportionate weightage for the revenues collected at Gwadar? Sea ports and international airports belong to the nation and not to any one province and the same logic applies to a country’s rivers and mineral resources.
Khurshid Anwer
Published in The Express Tribune, July 16th, 2012.
