“A great opportunity to ensure fair distribution of resources”

By: Tariq Khan Yousafzai

If the political leaders of our country are committed to the country’s stability and sustainable development, then everyone should promote the idea of federalism beyond linguistic and ethnic groups. The effects of the poison of regional bias should be eliminated from the public’s thinking. It is a well-known and recognized thing that a country cannot cross the milestone of development until the nation develops universal thinking beyond linguistic, ethnic and regional prejudices. When there is an unfair distribution of resources. So individual thinking will develop, and when the distribution of country’s resources is fair, the thought of centralism and universality will be strengthened, so it is necessary to ensure the fair distribution of country’s resources in every case. The distribution of resources in the provincial units of the country should be ensured not in terms of area and population, but according to the backwardness and need of the area, but unfortunately, everything is going the opposite way in our country. An atmosphere of mistrust is building. But after the current in-house change, all this has become a bit possible.
Whether in the government or in the opposition, all come together۔Unlike in the past, the federal government at this time is dependent on the mercy of the nationalist political leadership of the small units of the state. In such a situation, these parties can do something. The need for which was repeatedly felt in the past, but due to lack of power, they could not do it. The most important issue in this regard is the NFC award. On which Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal recently suggested that the current National Finance Commission formula is regressive because it prioritizes population, which encourages the tendency to increase population. For this reason, it has become almost impossible to conduct an authentic census. According to him, there are fault lines in this regard in Sindh and Balochistan. Sindh has an urban-rural divide, while Balochistan is divided between Pashtuns and Baloch. They claimed that, for this reason, every unit of society wants to exaggerate its population, so that it gets employment, political representation, finance. resources and other things. The National Finance Commission is established under Article (1) 160 of the Constitution. According to this provision within six months from the date of commencement, and thereafter at such intervals. For a period not exceeding five years, the President shall constitute a National Finance Commission which shall consist of the Minister of Finance of the Federal Government, the Ministers of Finance of the Provincial Governments and such other persons as may be appointed by the President after consultation with the Governors of the Provinces. The main task of this commission is to distribute the net revenue of the country’s revenue to the federation and the provinces and to give aid funds from the federal government to the provincial governments and the main objective is to stabilize the financial condition of the provinces. That is, it is an organization that distributes the earned income of the entire country to the federation and provinces under a fixed formula. The Finance Minister is the Chairman of the National Finance Awards. After the establishment of Pakistan, in December 1947, the formula for the distribution of produce in the provinces was arranged by Jeremy Reisman, which was officially adopted in 1952. The country is going through a crisis situation, in such a situation where the problems of the country are increasing by provoking a debate on an important point of the eighteenth amendment, if a better amendment is made, it can have very positive effects. The Eighteenth Amendment was the best in the objective conditions of the country at that time, on which all political parties formed a consensus. However, at this time, Ahsan Iqbal’s statement is being targeted for criticism and the intentions of the federal government are also being doubted. In this regard, according to the Baloch politicians from Balochistan, who select members from Sindh for NFC in the presence of highly qualified personalities in NFC, the consensus on the eighteenth amendment was reached with great difficulty. To tamper with any aspect of this would be to undermine this amendment. According to the Baloch leadership, there were many problems of nationalities in the country and the Eighteenth Amendment was the best possible solution, which was agreed upon by all the political parties. Trying to do. While the Pashtun political leadership’s thinking is completely opposite to this, because there are injustices with the Pashtuns in every census, due to which the condition of the Pashtuns is different. That they are deprived of their real rights, Punjabi nationalists who have no representation in Parliament also oppose this proposal. According to him, Punjab is already being abused in many cases, and if the national resources are not distributed on the basis of population, Punjab will also suffer financial loss, while the nationalists of Sindh have presented this statement in a very negative light. have been. Because of the manner in which the population is recorded in rural and urban Sindh. He is also ahead of the Pashtun and Baloch areas of Balochistan. In hindsight, it established a single entity’s dominance over political and financial affairs at the time. This is the reason why small provinces oppose the distribution of NFCs based on population alone. In 2009, this demand came out on his behalf, that other factors should also be kept in mind for the distribution of resources. Regarding the abolition of the Eighteenth Amendment, there was an attempt in the recent past to change this constitution and introduce a presidential system in the country, which caused noise and conspiratorial elements were repelled, however, this process will continue, because it involves these forces. has the advantage of having around one crore votes at this time. In this regard, the need is that the NFC award should be in proportion to the inhabited area and resources, along with this, instead of collecting federal expenses and resources, this authority should be handed over to the provinces and the provinces should participate in running the federation. Then the provinces should be given the same share in the federal institutions. Because the resources that are taken from the provinces at that time, the cost of one province is more. Not only this, all nationalist parties should also bring this amendment. That the federal government will receive loans. They will be spent on the basis of backwardness in the provinces, with this amendment, the difference between development and backwardness in the provinces should be eliminated.

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