Ninth NFC Award to be announced soon, says Dar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar on Monday said that 9th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award will be announced soon, ARY News reported.

The minister was speaking to media after the commission’s meeting on Tuesday.

Dar said that the second report of NFC was reviewed in the meeting. He said that a deadline of 10th December has been fixed to complete the final report over the issue.

The commission will meet again in third week of the December, the minister further said.

Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, who was also present in the meeting, said that the NFC report has created awareness among the provinces.

Punjab’s Finance Minister Ayesha Ghous also attended the meeting. However, finance ministers of other provinces did not attend the meeting.

What is National Finance Commission Award

The National Finance Commission Award is a planned economic program enacted since 1951. It distributes monetary resources among the provinces and the centre. In the 7th NFC Award in year 2010, for the first time factors other than population also considered for distribution among the provinces.

The distribution was based on 82 per cent weightage to population, 10.3 per cent to poverty, 2.5 per cent to revenue generation, 2.5 per cent to revenue collection and 2.7 per cent to the land mass.

The provinces’ share in the divisible pool of revenues increased from 47.5 per cent to 56 per cent in the first year and 57.5 per cent afterwards.

Under the award, Balochistan’s share in the provincial pool was increased to 9.09 per cent. Punjab was allocated a share of 51.74 per cent, Sindh 24.55 per cent and the NWFP 14.62 per cent.