‘Not easy to create S Punjab province’

LAHORE:Creation of South Punjab province could not be possible for any party without two-thirds majority in Senate, national and provincial assemblies while the PTI government is gradually moving towards it by allocated Rs3 billion for mini secretariat in South Punjab, besides legislation of ensuring the development budget allocated for the region should be spent only there.

Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht, along with Secretary Finance Abdul Khan Sumbal, Additional Finance Secretary (Budget) Ubaidullah Rana in a briefing to Lahore Economic Journalist (LEJA) here Monday, said that it was not an easy task to create a new province without approval of Senate, National Assembly and Provincial Assembly of Punjab. So is issue with creation of an administrative province as in existing political situation. Thus, the PTI has gradually started moving towards it by allocating budget for creation of mini secretariat in South Punjab where a special secretary level officer empowered to resolve the related issues independently while policy related matters referred to secretaries of respective departments. Further, the secretariat will be established in the ongoing fiscal year. However, it is yet to decide in which city Multan, Bahawalpur or another city it will be established.

Hashim Jawan Bakht, who was also the driving force behind Junoobi Punjab Sooba Mahaz (JPSM) before the general election of 2018 said, ‘We have ensured the development of South Punjab through legislation that allocated fund of the region would not be shifted to any other part of scheme expect within the region to increase the development budget utilisation and uplifting the area. Additionally, before creation of a new province, per capita development spending need to be improved to bring it on a par with developed districts in Punjab. So the mini secretariat is a first step towards this creation of new province direction’, the minister believed.

On Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT), Makhdoom Hashim said the OLMT would be operational in ongoing fiscal year. ‘There is no financial hindrance to delay launch of the project. Rather, the transport department has been instructed to come up with business plan for the project in which earning from advertisement locations, shops and business area of the project will substantiate the project cost and reduce subsidy burden on the government kitty’, the minister said adding that the transport department was also asked to share the details of impact of increasing the Metro Bus fare by Rs10 on revenue collection and riders behaviour.

The department sought time and the government will review the impact of it how does it improve the revenue and ridership and make future decisions accordingly, he added.

Responding about Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) award, the minister said that preliminary meeting on it had already done while further process was underway. However, he made it clear that under third tire government system (local government) people pay taxes against the services delivery and the government was evolving a mechanism for public awareness about their tax utilisation. In evolving mechanism, the government focused on system digitisation and minimising the human interaction to improve service delivery and malpractices. The minister said it would not delay the local government elections. The work on local government election is underway as per plan, he added. On fiscal management in Punjab, Makhdoom Hashim said that Punjab was on under Rs56 billion debt when the PTI government came into the power in shape of payment the contractors’ bills which were paid and now financial health of the province was stable. The province will likely to end the ongoing fiscal year with almost Rs250 billion surplus. Additionally, 46 percent higher tax revenue collection target was fixed for the Punjab in the budget than the previous financial year and so far in first quarter it collected 44 percent higher than the corresponding period of last fiscal year. The Punjab efficiently using the Resource Mobilisation Committee (RMC) platform for efficient revenue collection measures and stopping the inefficient development projects financing. So far almost seven meetings of the RMC were already done in the first quarter as compared to the past when the RMC meetings held only in the last quarter for formation of the next budget, he added. The government through the financial management only approved Rs21 billion supplementary grants and blocked almost Rs32 billion grants summaries through logical reasoning and justifications, he mentioned.

To a question about imposition of cleanliness tax in Islamabad, the minister said that no such proposal was under consideration in the province. “Islamabad is only a city where it could be implemented but the Punjab is the largest province with almost half the country’s population. We cannot impose any tax without improving the service delivery’, he added.

About Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme resources allocation, the minister said that required demand of Rs500 million was approved and would be released whenever the concern authority would seek funds.