PESHAWAR - The meeting of the National Finance Commission (NFC) will take place today (Thursday) here with Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin in the chair. All four provincial finance ministers and their concerned team members on the NFC will also attend the meeting here at the Governor House. It will be the third meeting of the commission since its reconstitution by President Zardari. All the delegates have already arrived in the provincial metropolis. It was believed that owing to the risky law and order situation, the venue of the meeting might be changed. However, sources informed TheNation that the meeting would still be held in Peshawar. The aim of this meeting is to agree in principle to chalk out a new formula for the much-awaited 7th NFC Award, which is acceptable to all stakeholders, regarding the distribution of resources amongst the Centre and the provinces. During the last meeting held in Quetta on Oct 12 and 13, the federal and provincial govts had formally agreed to the distribution of resources on the basis of revenue generation, revenue collection, population and backwardness. The NWFP government has time and again stressed the need for an early payment of the outstanding arrears in the net hydel profit through a presidential proclamation to the NWFP. This time, it has prepared a solid case regarding the payment of net hydel profit. NWFP also plans to urge for the allocation of 10 percent of the next Award for law and order, compensation of damages, and on the on-going war on terror that has paralyzed the entire province. The representatives of the NWFP had raised the issue of the provinces role as a frontline province in the war on terror, and the problem of Afghan refugees and displaced persons. On other hand, the Punjab government had expressed its willingness to accept distribution of resources on the basis of multiple criteria, instead of only population, which is termed to be a big outcome of the NFC meetings held so far in Islamabad and Quetta. Similarly, Sindh province wanted the award to be based on multiple criteria, including area, population, revenue generation, backwardness and geographical factors. Furthermore, the Government of Balochistan had urged the incorporation of various indicators like poverty as well as area. In addition, its long-awaited demand is of the early payment of arrears on gas royalty. Balochistan also insists that health, education, and law and order should be transferred to the provinces. It is worth mentioning here that the NFC is a platform where central and provincial governments agree on a formula to share federally collected financial resources between the central and provincial governments. The formula on which the distribution of financial resources had so far been carried out was mainly based on size of the population of province and resources being generated there. However, provinces had rightly objected to the previous formula and pointed out that the population figures have been unrealistic. They believe that it should be based on a multi-factor formula involving population, poverty, revenue collection and population for sharing the resources among federating units and the center.