Pemra deposits Rs57.829m to Federal Consolidated Fund

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has deposited a total of Rs57.829 million in government’s Federal Consolidated Fund during the financial year 2014-15 including the surplus revenue of Rs20 million.
Pemra, during the FY2014-15, collected revenue of Rs658.924 million against the actual expenditure of Rs638.846 million resulting in surplus of Rs20 million which is being remitted to Federal Consolidated Fund.
Moreover, an amount of Rs15.132 million was collected on behalf of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as advance tax levied on various licencees of electronic media through Finance Act 2013. The same was deposited to federal government. In addition, fine of Rs22.697 million was imposed on various licencees of electronic media for committing violations of Pemra laws and licence terms and conditions which was duly collected and deposited into the Federal Consolidated Fund.
It is worth mentioning that the surplus amount was not due to increase in Pemra revenue but was actually the result of massive expenditure cuts and stringent austerity measures adopted by the present management. Pemra former chairman Muhammad Pervaiz Rathore and present acting Chairman Kamal Udddin Tipu, right after taking charge, had initiated necessary steps to ensure economy and austerity and to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in order to improve revenue collection and control expenditure of the authority. The bare minimum resources of the authority were utilised to achieve optimum output. More rational and wise approach was adopted while incurring expenditure and revenue collection was expedited pro-actively which resulted in considerable increase in surplus.
It may be mentioned that Section 15 of Pemra (Amendment) Act 2007 dealing with authority’s budget was amended through the Finance Act 2012 whereby the authority was required to remit any surplus of receipts over the actual expenditure in a year, after payment of tax to the Federal Consolidated Fund.
Moreover, the section 33 of the said Act was further amended through the Finance Act 2012 whereby it was specified that all the penalties and fines recovered under Pemra Ordinance and the Rules made thereunder shall be credited to the Federal Consolidated Fund.