ISLAMABAD – The federal government would distribute the income generated by China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects among the provinces through National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.
“Any increase in income generated by CPEC projects will come into Federal Consolidated Fund for further distribution between Federation and Provinces . Therefore, the impact of income generated by CPEC projects will have positive impact on the income of provinces through NFC Award,” according to the official documents.
The federal government would transfer the income from divisible pool to provinces under 7th NFC award. Under the 7th NFC Award, the federal government is bound to transfer 57.5 percent resources to all the four provinces from federal divisible pool. Under the current award, Punjab gets 51.74pc share, Sindh 24.55pc, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 14.62 percent and Balochistan 9.09pc under the divisible pool.
The federal government had already announced that it would not constitute the new National Finance Commission Award on the basis of provisional results of the population census.
The next government will constitute the fresh revenue-sharing formula between the centre and provinces on the basis of fresh population census results, Rana Afzal Khan, Minister of State for Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs has recently informed The Nation.
Therefore, the CPEC income would be distributed through the 7th NFC award. The five-year constitutional term of the arrangement of 7th NFC Award had expired on June 30, 2015. The government for the consecutive third year had extended the seventh award for the ongoing financial year 2017-18 after failing to constitute new NFC Award.