Raisman Program


The Raisman Program, was a series of economic reforms programs enacted and established by Pakistan in 1951. Philosophical understanding of the program emerged in 1947 to provide economic distribution of total revenue, at parallel and perpendicular level, in the country. The program was announced by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1947, as part of his new economic policy to curbed the political discrepancies and economic preference. The civil servant, Sir Jeremy Raisman, in Prime Minister Ali Khan's government presented his recommendation in 1947; therefore the program was named after Raisman.
In December 1947, the first award under this program was enacted by Sir Jeremy Raisman after being approved by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Under this program, the taxation was federalized with 56% shares of the four provinces and public taxation was transferred to the federal government after the notification of Raisman Program was released on 1 April 1952. Raisman program was later terminated by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan instead renaming as National Finance Commission, also in 1951. Since 1951, the program had enacted only three NFC awards of 1961, 1964 and 1970, which all of these were given in unusual circumstances and remained inconclusive. The first two awards were during the period of promulgating the one unit program.
Since 1951, there were only three of these awards enacted by the Raisman program. All of these were given in unusual circumstances and their results remained inconclusive. The Raisman program enacted the awards during the promulgation of One Unit Program, and equally distributed with West-Pakistan and East-Pakistan. In 1970, the Raiman program enacted the final third award during the martial law and a year before East Pakistan seceded. Its results too remain inconclusive which became a one reason for this secession was also their resentment on the revenue distributions of the past.

Chronology of Raisman Program Awards


Awards listing order Raisman Award ListingPresented byTests, Results, and StatusProjected Fiscal year
FirstRaisman Award, 1951Liakat Ali Khan1951–55
SecondNFC Award, 1961Ayub Khan1961–64
ThirdNFC Award, 1964Ayub Khan1964–67
FourthNFC Award, 1970Yahya Khan


Public books