No high population growth blackmail, please

Business Recorder

2 days ago

EDITORIAL: Ahsan Iqbal, the Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives, on the occasion of the launch of Asian Infrastructure Report 2025 by the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) remarked on the need to revisit the major criteria for resource distribution, notably population, under the 2010 National Finance Commission award. Three extremely disturbing observations are in order.
Firstly, the last NFC award was 25 years ago and this in spite of Article 160 of the constitution which stipulates that 'within six months of the commencing day and thereafter at intervals not exceeding five years, the President shall constitute a National Finance Commission consisting of the Ministers of Finance and Provincial Governments, and such persons as maybe appointed by the President after consultation with the Governors of the Provinces.' Thus while three NFC awards subsequent to the 2010 award should have been agreed and implemented all administrations representing the three national parties have been unable to reach a consensus and instead have relied on Clause 6 which states that in the event that an order has not been issued by the President because there have been no recommendations by the NFC 'the President may, by order, make such amendments or modification in the law relating to the distribution of revenues between the Federal Government and the Provincial Governments as he may deem necessary or expedient.'
Secondly, the consensus on 2010 NFC award was reached after the Punjab government agreed to a percentage decrease in population as the major criteria — an agreement supported by the then Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif for reportedly the then PPPP-led government's agreement to amend the constitution to allow for a third-time prime minister. Population component of the award was reduced to 82 percent, poverty and backwardness 10.3 percent, revenue collection or generation 5 percent and inverse population density 2.7 percent. This, in turn, accounted for Punjab's share to decline from 57.88 percent to 51.74 percent, for Sindh share to rise from 23.28 percent to 24.55 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to rise from 13.54 percent to 14.62 percent and Balochistan's share to rise from 5.3 percent to 9.09 percent. There is a need to further reduce the population component of the NFC award as correctly stated by the Planning Minister as the NFC must not incentivise population growth, which is considered a major reason behind the lack of focus of all provincial governments to reduce population growth and thereby improve the percentage benefitting from social and physical infrastructure.
In fact, the opposite has happened; in order to maximize the share of resources under the NFC, the number of seats in the National Assembly and quotas in federal job allocations the population figures have been grossly exaggerated. The result is that the results of all censuses carried out post-1972 (the third census was conducted, replacing the planned 1971 census due to political circumstances) have been contested and rejected by various parts of society in various parts of the country. They have been rejecting the results of censuses as being flawed, if not entirely false.
Nevertheless, one can draw a lesson or two from India where the share of population in distribution of resources was significantly reduced in the NFC; and other criteria such as distance factor, tax generation, fiscal discipline, infrastructure index, forest and ecology, etc., have been introduced in the NFC. The number of seats in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) stands frozen (initially frozen by Indira Gandhi for 25 years and the freeze then extended by another 25 years by Atal Behari Vajpayee. It is due to expire within the present tenure of the incumbent government); and it is unlikely to be changed on the basis of the upcoming census. In this regard, it is important to note that a number of political parties have demanded prime minister Narendra Modi give a categorical assurance in Parliament that the freeze on the number and state-wise distribution of seats in Lok Sabha will be extended for another 30 years beyond 2026.
It is therefore desirable in our own national interest as well that the weight of population within the NFC formula is reduced significantly to arrest the proclivity to overstate and grossly exaggerate the population figures at the time of the national census. Needless to say, carrying out national census and announcing NFC award every 10 years are constitutional obligations and it is matter of national shame that successive governments in the country have miserably failed in fulfilling this mandatory obligations under the supreme law of the land, the supreme law that they swear to uphold under the sacred oath that they take upon assuming office of the State. They must not ignore the fact that population growth is a huge liability. In other words, a large population base with high population growth is a ticking time bomb, to say the least.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025