Khyber Pakhtunkhwa striving to increase revenue resources

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Finance, Engineer Mohammad Hamayun Khan has said that the provincial government is making all-out efforts for increasing its own revenue resources. Addressing a post-budget press conference here on Monday he said that presently the province was generating Rs 7 billion, which was only 3.2 per cent of the total receipts of the budget.
Those present on the occasion were Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information, Mian Iftikhar Hussein, secretary finance, Sahibzada Saeed Ahmad, Secretary Planning & Development, Saleem Mohmand and other officials. He said that the oil and gas sector was generating an amount of Rs 16 billion. Similarly, hydropower projects are earning revenue of Rs 2.11 billion while construction work on two other projects - Matlitan and Lawi - will start from December this year.
The minister for finance said that the provincial government would soon give a presentation to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani to plead the case of uncapping of the amount paid to the province in head net-profit on hydropower generation. The minister said that a technical committee constituted for the resolution of the issue has held several meetings, the matter could not be resolved because of the attitude of the Water & Power Development Authority (WAPDA) in those meetings.
He said that the Chief Minister has written a letter to the Prime Minister for a presentation on the issue, who had assured its resolution within a period of one-month. After the budget, he said the prime minister would give time for the presentation. He was confident that with the resolution of the longstanding dispute of the outstanding amount in head of net profit on the hydropower generation, cap on the annual amount would also be removed.
To a question, he said that devastated flood during last monsoon season has inflicted a loss of Rs 105 billion on the province and for the provision of relief and rehabilitation of the affectees, the provincial government suspended annual development programme (ADP) for a period of 45 days. But, later initiated work on 636 ongoing development schemes and suspended work on the new schemes. The measure helped generated an amount of Rs 16 billion out of which 7.2 billion were provided to Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) for provision of relief and rehabilitation of the flood affected people in the province.
The provincial government, he said has initiated 154 schemes of rehabilitation at a cost of Rs 14 billion, which had minimised major affect of the flood. Some of these schemes would be completed by June 30 this year and the remaining would be completed by the end of the next financial year. He said that the provincial government was giving priority to productive and resource-oriented sectors, saying that JICA was providing loan for road sector while Asian Development Bank for hydel sector.