Role Of NPC In The Economic Development Of The North
By S. Thavarajah –November 7, 2015
S. Thavarajah
Before I delve into the subject matter given to me to address today i.e. “Role of Northern Provincial Council (NPC) in the Economic Development of the North”, let me first look into what is meant by Economic Development. Economic Growth is often misconstrued as Economic Development. Economic Growth is measured in terms of increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GNP) and in terms of increase in GDP or GNP per capita, means per person.
Whereas, Economic Development is a policy intervention endeavour for economic and social well-being of the people. It is really the growth of the standard of living of the people of a country. Its scope includes the process and policies by which a country improves the economic and social well-being of its people. In fact, Economic Growth is only one aspect of the process of Economic Development.
Economic Development is measured in terms of ‘Human Development Indicators (HDI)”. The UNDP in 1990 introduced the indicators for measuring the HDI. Number of items such as Education, Poverty, access to Technology etc. is listed by the UNDP as the measure of HDI.
For example the economic growth or for that matter the GDP of China and India are much higher than Singapore, New Zealand and Belgium. But in terms of Economic Development or HDI it is vice-verse.
Having said that let me now look into the factors that influence the Economic Development of a country. Any text book on economy would reveal that access to capital, availability of natural resources, conditions of foreign trade, political system, economic policies/system adopted by the Government, availability of human resources including skills and technical know-how etc. are the factors that contribute towards the Economic Development of a country.
But here we are not talking about a country; we are only talking about an entity within the country. NPC is an entity created under the 13th amendment with limited powers. 13th amendment is intended to grant devolution of powers to provinces, but in reality it is delegation of powers. It has very limited financial resources. It depends on annual Government grant.
For example, if we look at the National Budget for the year 2015 the total Recurrent Expenditure of the Government is Rs. 1,547,910 million, out of which the allocation to all the nine provincial councils is Rs. 189,600 million which amounts to 12.24 percentage of the total expenditure. Similarly the total Capital Expenditure is Rs. 1,857,090 million, out of which the allocation to all the nine provincial councils is Rs. 34,077 which amounts to 1.83 percentage of the total expenditure. Read More
