SWABI: The row between federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa governments over Rs4 billion assets of Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) has deepened as the process of devolution of the board to the province is in the pipeline, according to sources.

Mohammad Ayaz Khan, former member of board of directors of PTB, told this scribe that federal government had made its mind to hand over PTB to provincial government. Since its establishment, PTB has worked under the central government.

Sources said that after passage of 18th Amendment, majority of government departments were devolved to provincial government, however, the tobacco board was kept by central government owing to its lucrative nature and revenue generation.

According to the process, federal government will transferimportant functions of PTB to provincial government and wind up while the rightsizing committee will submit its report in the current month.

Sources said that KP government continued its struggle to get control of the board and accelerated the campaign after general eleetions 2018. It said that tobacco was a provincial subject and PTB should be devolved to KP government under the Eighteenth Constitution Amendment, they added.

As federal government decided to transfer PTB to provincial government, Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain was recently briefed about the reserves and other resources of PTB. Now the focus is that how federal government can grab the reserves and let KP government to constitute KP Tobacco Board (KPTB) to handle tobacco crop related issues,` said sources.

However, they said that KP government made it clear that the PTB reserves, pension to its employees, salary of various officials and workers, buildings, vehicles and all other facilities were actually managed by PTB through the levy imposed ontobacco produced in the province.

`The provincial government has the right to take over the reserves of PTB and the federal government should give up the tactics to devour it. Let the KP government constitute its own tobacco board, only leaving PTB building in Hayatabad, Peshawar is not acceptable to the provincial government at any cost,` said sources.

All functions like salaries, pension, other expenses on research and development etc are being met from the tobacco cess as laid down in Section-9 of PTB Ordinance, 1968.

Sources said that recently a meeting was held about the devolution of PTB Peshawar office and the impression was given that it would affect the tobacco growers but beneath that claim the officials were actually striving to protecttheirperks and privileges.

Liaquat Yousafzai, central president of Tobacco Growers Association, when contacted, saidthat it was a fact that neither the federal gove r n m e n t nor the provincial gove r n m e n t spent a sin-gle penny on tobacco development.

He said that they got a huge income, but despite that the growers were always exploited and PTB failed to play its due role in that regard.

That`s why tobacco growers were always trapped in financial quagmire, he added.

Local growers said that after the devolution of PTB to the province they expected that the provincial government would take steps to benefit them.

An official of federal national food security and research ministry, when contacted, said that PTB secretary said that as per the order of prime minister regarding rightsizing it would be further decided how to hand over PTB to the province.

He said that financial position of PTB was strong. `There are no reserves, however, PTB has a certain amount for its pensioners, he added.