Kousar Khan
What happens when the distance between a citizen and the government keeps increasing? The social contract begins to fray. A trust deficit takes root. The state gradually becomes a distant abstraction, issuing policies, allocating resources and making decisions from afar, while the citizen remains at the receiving end, struggling to identify who is responsible when those decisions fail to translate into roads, schools, hospitals and other basic services.
Now reverse the equation.
What happens when that distance is reduced? When the government is administratively closer to the people it governs, when decision-makers understand the geography and problems of their own region, and when a citizen can identify the authority responsible for a broken road, a dysfunctional hospital, an under-resourced school or a security failure?
Accountability becomes more tangible, public pressure more consequential and administrative priorities more attuned to local realities. Most importantly, the state ceases to appear as a distant and faceless authority; it becomes an institution within reach; one that citizens can approach, question and, when necessary, hold to account.
This is why the question of administrative restructuring deserves serious consideration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
On July 30, 2026, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called for a “system reset,” arguing that Pakistan could no longer continue with a system that had repeatedly failed to deliver. At core of his remarks lies a more fundamental question: are Pakistan’s existing administrative structures still equipped to govern a country whose population, geography, economic needs and governance challenges have evolved so dramatically?
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provides perhaps one of the clearest cases for asking that question.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has immense human, geographic, mineral, agricultural, tourism and hydropower potential. Its people deserve an administrative system capable of converting that potential into security, opportunity and public welfare. They deserve to know who is responsible for their schools, hospitals, roads, resources and development and they deserve the institutional ability to demand their rights.
For more than a decade, the province has largely remained under the political dominance of the same political force. Yet continuity in political control has not automatically translated into continuity in governance outcomes. The province continues to grapple with a formidable array of challenges: persistent terrorism and insecurity, recurring protests by students and other segments of society, allegations of extrajudicial killings, administrative inertia, and a public-service delivery system that too often falls short of citizens’ most basic expectations.
The problems are visible far beyond political debates.
Schools in some parts of the province resemble abandoned structures rather than functioning centres of learning. Government hospitals have repeatedly faced shortages of beds, medicines and basic facilities. Images and reports of patients sharing beds, attendants occupying corridors and even families having to arrange beds for their own patients are difficult to reconcile with the idea of a functional welfare state.
At the same time, the province continues to witness allegations and scandals involving corruption and misuse of public resources, while illegal extraction and smuggling of minerals raise questions about who actually benefits from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s considerable natural wealth.
These problems are not being cited to suggest that every failure of governance has one cause or that administrative restructuring can solve every challenge overnight. Security, corruption, institutional capacity, political instability and economic constraints all require separate responses.
But they do raise an important question:
Is the existing provincial structure itself helping the government respond effectively to the needs of a geographically diverse and administratively challenging province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa therefore needs to seriously consider reorganising itself into smaller, administratively viable provinces. Fortunately, the province already possesses a natural administrative framework on which such a restructuring could be built: its existing divisional structure.
Rather than drawing entirely new boundaries, the seven existing divisions can provide the administrative foundation for seven provinces, each centred around a major city with an established economic, administrative and geographic significance.
Under this model, Peshawar Province, headquartered in Peshawar, would comprise Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Khyber and Mohmand.
Mardan Province, headquartered in Mardan, would comprise Mardan and Swabi.
Malakand Province, headquartered at Swat, would comprise Swat, Buner, Shangla, Malakand, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Upper Chitral, Lower Chitral and Bajaur.
Hazara Province, headquartered in Abbottabad, would comprise Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Battagram, Torghar, Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas.
Kohat Province, headquartered in Kohat, would comprise Kohat, Hangu, Karak, Orakzai and Kurram.
Bannu Province, headquartered in Bannu, would comprise Bannu, Lakki Marwat and North Waziristan.
And Dera Ismail Khan Province, headquartered in Dera Ismail Khan, would comprise Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Upper South Waziristan and Lower South Waziristan.
This arrangement would not be about creating additional political positions or multiplying bureaucratic offices. Its justification would be administrative: making the government smaller in geographical scope so that it can become larger in its capacity to respond to the citizen.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is not a uniform administrative space. Its mountain districts, settled districts, newly merged districts, southern belt and urban centres face markedly different challenges.
The development priorities of Swat are not identical to those of Bannu. The infrastructure requirements of Upper Chitral cannot be planned in exactly the same manner as those of Peshawar. The security environment of North Waziristan requires a different administrative focus from the economic and urban pressures of Mardan.
One provincial government attempting to address all these realities from a single centre inevitably faces limitations of distance, capacity and attention.
Smaller provinces can bring decision-making closer to these realities.
Consider what this means for an ordinary citizen. Take an ordinary road project.
If a road connecting two districts remains incomplete for years, people should know which government is responsible. If a bridge is washed away and reconstruction is delayed, citizens should not have to navigate an enormous administrative system just to find out who is answerable.
The same applies to hospitals.
If a government hospital has ten beds for a population that requires fifty, the administration responsible should be identifiable. If patients are lying in corridors or sharing beds, people should be able to demand an explanation from someone who has both responsibility and authority.
The same applies to education.
A child sitting in a broken classroom in Swat should not have to compromise on his education because the provincial government is too distant or preoccupied with matters elsewhere. Parents should be able to ask why their school lacks classrooms, furniture, teachers or basic facilities, and the relevant government should be close enough to answer.
This is the real argument for smaller provinces. They make accountability more visible.
However, drawing seven boundaries on a map would be the easiest part of the exercise. Making seven provinces work would require considerably more.
Any alteration to provincial boundaries would have to follow the constitutional procedure prescribed under Article 239, requiring political consensus and the necessary parliamentary and provincial approvals. The financial architecture would require equally careful planning. Article 160 provides the constitutional framework for the National Finance Commission and the distribution of federal revenues. The division of existing provincial assets, liabilities, development allocations, institutions and revenues would therefore have to be addressed before implementation.
The question of royalties and natural resources would be particularly important for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The province’s hydropower, minerals and other natural resources represent enormous economic potential. A new administrative arrangement should ensure that these resources are transparently documented, legally extracted and fairly utilised for public welfare rather than becoming a source of illegal enrichment or capture by powerful interests.
A comprehensive transition plan would therefore have to establish the financial viability of each proposed province, define its revenue sources and expenditure responsibilities, distribute personnel and assets, protect ongoing development projects and establish mechanisms for transparent resource management.
The principle should be simple: first design the system, then execute it with discipline.
There is another condition without which smaller provinces would simply reproduce the weaknesses of the larger one: strong local governments.
If the Chief Minister is sitting in Peshawar, the citizens should not have to travel to the provincial capital for every local problem. A functional local government should have the authority and resources to deal with municipal services, local roads, sanitation, water supply and community-level development.
The ideal structure is therefore not merely smaller provinces. It is smaller provinces with empowered local governments.
Such a system can also strengthen the social contract. When citizens know which institution is responsible, they can demand performance. When governments know that their responsibilities are clearly visible, failure becomes harder to conceal. When resources are allocated closer to the communities that generate or require them, monitoring becomes more practical.
The objective is ultimately much bigger than administrative convenience. It is about rebuilding the relationship between the citizen and the state.
A province should not be so large that a citizen becomes invisible to its government.
If Pakistan is genuinely considering a “system reset,” Khyber Pakhtunkhwa offers an opportunity to begin the conversation where it matters most: with the distance between the state and the citizen.
Seven smaller, administratively viable provinces will not by themselves create a welfare state. But if they are accompanied by sound financial planning, constitutional compliance, empowered local governments, institutional reform, transparent resource management and above all political commitment, they can bring the government closer to the people and make those who govern considerably easier to hold accountable.
That is the kind of system reset Khyber Pakhtunkhwa needs.
