NFC Award: Make AJK a federating unit, minister

AJK suffered loss in the distribution of federal funds.

MUZAFFARABAD: “We have suffered a financial loss due to the NFC, as provinces were award with their share in the federal finance pool, but AJK, as it is not a federating unit of Pakistan, suffered loss in the distribution of federal funds,” AJK Finance Minister Abdul Rashid Abbasi told a post budget conference on Tuesday. He said royalties on dams and Kashmiri property in Pakistan has not been paid to AJK. “We have been taking up these issues constantly with the federal government because Mangla Dam royalty and Kashmir property has been the right of Kashmir” he said. He believed that an amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan is necessary to include AJK as a federating unit for obtaining Mangla dam royalties and other financial shares. He announced that loadshedding in AJK will be decreased in the coming days.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.