Hydel profit share: Out of Rs12b, K-P govt receives only Rs3b

Outstanding Rs9b taken up with centre.

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has received only Rs3 billion out of the outstanding Rs12 billion in its net hydel profit share, said K-P Finance Secretary Sahibzada Saeed Ahmad here on Monday.

The federal government releases Rs6 billion every year to the K-P government as net hydel profit share, but of the accumulated Rs12 billion from the last two years, the centre has only paid Rs3 billion.

Flanked by K-P Finance Minister Humayun Khan and Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the finance secretary said in the financial year 2011-12, K-P received only Rs3 billion and no payment has been made in the current year.

Ahmad, however, said the K-P government received Rs33 billion in the last two financial years in the name of the war on terror from the central divisible pool.

“This year alone, the province was supposed to receive Rs22 billion for the war on terror,” he said, adding, “The money received from the divisible pool is spent on maintaining law and order in the region and the remaining money was included in the provincial budget”.

“We receive one per cent additional funding to meet our expenditure in the war on terror, which amounted to 16.42 per cent financed by the National Finance Commission,” Ahmed said.

The K-P government receives Rs6 billion net hydel profit share every year since 1991, the secretary finance said the outstanding amount to the tune of Rs9 billion has been taken up with the centre and the issue is near settlement. “So it is not a matter of disappointment”, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2013.