Punjab eyes Rs 13b from land privatisation

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Jawwad Rizvi
CHIEF Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Friday issued orders for making the Punjab Privatization Board (PPB) functional within one month in order to timely privatise government land in the province and to get Rs 13 billions budgetary target, set for the current fiscal year from privatisation.

The News has learnt that the case to make the Punjab Privatization Board functional had been pending for almost last three years as no privatisation activity was made by the previous government in the last two years of its tenure. To make the Punjab Privatization Board more transparent and powerful institution, the new Punjab government had introduced an Act and the draft of the Act was in the Law Department for finalisation while the chief minister had approved that the Punjab Board of Revenue would administer the PPB.

However, to make the Punjab Privatization Board an autonomous entity on the pattern of the Privatisation Commission (PC), an independent chairman would be appointed who would be competent and know the dealing of such privatisation. Previously, privatization in the province was done through the Punjab Board of Revenue.

Sources, privy to the meeting, revealed that initially, it was proposed that the PPB would be administered by the Punjab Finance Department. However, the idea was rejected as the privatisation cases would deal with the land privatisation and the BOR would be the better department to handle it.

They said that once, the PPB would be functional, the Punjab government was likely to achieve Rs 13 billion budgetary targets from the process.

They said if the Punjab Privatization Board would not be functional than Punjab would have a confirm budget deficit of Rs 13 billions as it would not get budgetary receipts from privatisation. Sources said the Punjab Privatization Boardwould take up the issue of the Pakistan Telecommunication Ltd (PTCL) and Railways land in the province as the federal government had privatised the PTCL and PTCL telephone exchanges were established at the Punjab government land and the provincial government had the ownership rights of such land. Similarly, the Punjab government owned some land of the Pakistan Railways and the provincial government would also ask the federal government for the settlement of such land as well.

They said the government could Rs 10 billion only from the Pakistan Telecommunication Ltd and Railways land in the province.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=203554