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The governance crises in Pakistan are real. At Pakistan Economic Summit 2026, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi stated that the "existing system has collapsed," and there is hardly anyone who would disagree that ordinary people cannot easily access courts, hospitals, and government offices. While the debate on the creation of new administrative units has started again, what needs to be asked is not whether reforms are needed in Pakistan. Instead, the question is whether creating new provinces is the solution or simply a very expensive detour from already available solutions.
The
answer is embedded in the Constitution of Pakistan. Article 140-A, which was
introduced by the 18th Amendment in 2010, constitutionally mandates all
provinces to establish a local government system and transfer authority to
them. This is not a suggestion, nor is it a recommendation. It is a
constitutional mandate that has been in place for the last fifteen years but
has not been meaningfully implemented. Before discussing the implications of
redrawing its map, we need to answer honestly one simple question: why has
Article 140-A never been implemented?
According
to Naqvi, governance problems have emerged whereby citizens have to travel long
distances to access basic services, and the government feels remote and
unresponsive. Local government was designed to address these issues. An
efficient local government ensures the presence of elected representatives,
administration offices, and service delivery very close to the people. There is
no need for new borders, new capitals, new bureaucratic hierarchies, or
amendments to the Constitution. What is needed is political will that has been
missing since 2010.
Secondly,
establishing new provinces does not come easily or cheaply. As per Article
239(4) of the Constitution, any change made to the boundary of a province
requires a bill to be passed with a two-thirds majority in the governing
provincial assembly and must be approved by the National Assembly and the
Senate. Since the PPP has already stated that it does not accept the division
of Sindh at any cost and the PML-N has also avoided clarifying its stance
regarding the matter, obtaining a two-thirds majority will be very difficult.
Even if the political will existed to secure a majority, the financial costs of
creating a new provincial capital, its secretariat, high court, administration,
and civil structure from scratch would be hundreds of billions of rupees —
precisely when Pakistan is struggling with the IMF and managing every single
penny of its expenditures.
The
fundamental flaw in the new provinces discussion is the incorrect diagnosis of
the ailment. Failures of governance in Pakistan cannot be attributed to
geographical boundaries, as it is the bureaucratic system that is immune from
accountability. A citizen living in a faraway town of Punjab does not fail to
receive good service simply because Punjab is a large province, but because
administrative processes between the citizen and the state fail to adhere to
the principles of accountability and transparency. If a new province is
created, the only thing that will change will be a new bureaucratic unit, with
the challenge remaining the same. The appropriate step in this case would be
bureaucratic reform through the establishment of clear performance indicators,
appointment procedures, and steps towards independent accountability.
It
should also be noted that calls for new provinces are not something new; the
Hazara province movement has been active since 2010, and South Punjab and
Bahawalpur have been discussed for many years. In fact, there was even a
constitutional amendment bill regarding South Punjab that passed the Senate
back in 2013. However, none of these movements resulted in the creation of a
new province, as the constitutional process is complicated, and rightly so.
Indeed, reorganizing a federation is not a common administrative procedure.
The issue faced by Pakistan is not a scarcity of provinces but rather that it is failing to provide governance in the provinces it already has. Article 140-A has been in the Constitution for 15 years. Local governments in the country are typically weak, short on funds, and politically dominated by provincial authorities. If the government is serious about transferring power to its citizens, we should not be drawing lines on the map but rather adhering to a constitutional commitment we made many years ago but failed to implement.
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