Think tank puts Rs47bn annual cost on two new provinces
PRIME's analysis says upgrading all 30 divisions to provincial status could cost up to Rs730 billion a year, and urges stronger local government instead.
Splitting Punjab into three provinces would add between Rs47 billion and Rs57 billion a year to the government's recurring costs, a private Islamabad think tank has estimated.
The Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (PRIME) released the analysis on Thursday, Dawn reported. The institute found more fiscal faults than benefits in the new-province proposals under discussion and advised that priority go to stronger local governments if better public service delivery was the aim.
The Rs47bn to Rs57bn range covers the creation of two more provinces: South Punjab, Bahawalpur and the remaining Punjab. PRIME put the cost of upgrading the country's 30 divisional units to provincial status at up to Rs730 billion.
Those sums are additional annual recurring expenditure, Dawn reported, so they would be repeated every year rather than incurred once.
PRIME's lower estimate applies to the three-unit map, in which Punjab is divided into a South Punjab province, a Bahawalpur province and the residual Punjab. Its upper estimate applies to the far wider change in which every division becomes a province, 30 units in all.
PRIME is a private think tank based in Islamabad, and the note was issued as a market analysis release.
The institute's advice, as Dawn reported it, is to give priority to stronger local governments over new provinces where the intention is to improve public service delivery.
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