Laiba Khan
Pakistan’s debate on new provinces has long been trapped in the politics of identity. Every proposal is quickly dismissed as an ethnic demand, a political bargain or an attempt to redraw electoral boundaries. Lost beneath this rhetoric is a more fundamental question: can a federation of more than 240 million people continue to be governed through an administrative framework designed for a vastly smaller country?
This is not a constitutional curiosity but a governance dilemma. As Pakistan’s population has more than doubled over the past three decades, its provincial architecture has remained virtually unchanged. The result is increasingly visible in the widening gap between provincial capitals and peripheral districts, uneven public service delivery, overburdened bureaucracies and persistent regional disparities. The question is therefore not whether Pakistan needs administrative reform, but whether its existing provincial structure still possesses the institutional capacity to govern effectively.
The size of Pakistan’s provinces is often discussed as a demographic statistic; in reality, it is an administrative liability. Punjab alone has a population exceeding 120 million, larger than that of many sovereign states. Expecting a single provincial government to administer such a vast and diverse population with equal efficiency is unrealistic. The challenge is not simply one of scale but of institutional reach. A bureaucracy headquartered in Lahore cannot reasonably be expected to understand or respond with equal urgency to the vastly different developmental needs of Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi, Mianwali and Dera Ghazi Khan. The same structural constraints are evident in other provinces, where remote districts remain physically and politically distant from provincial centres of power.
The consequences are measurable rather than theoretical. Peripheral districts consistently lag behind provincial capitals in healthcare infrastructure, educational outcomes, road connectivity, industrial investment and access to public services. Budgetary allocations often favour politically influential urban centres, while geographically distant regions struggle to secure sustained administrative attention. Although successive governments have launched development initiatives aimed at reducing regional disparities, these programmes have largely addressed the symptoms of administrative imbalance rather than its underlying cause.
Comparative experience suggests that effective governance requires administrative structures to evolve alongside demographic change. India, despite its own linguistic and ethnic diversity, has repeatedly reorganised its internal boundaries to improve governance and administrative efficiency. The creation of Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand in 2000 was driven primarily by the recognition that geographically distinct regions required governments capable of responding to local priorities. Nigeria likewise expanded from three regions to thirty-six states over several decades in an effort to improve representation and administrative accessibility within a highly diverse federation. Even countries with far smaller populations than Pakistan operate through significantly larger numbers of administrative units. These examples do not imply that Pakistan should mechanically replicate foreign models. They illustrate a broader principle of public administration: governance structures must evolve with the societies they serve.
Pakistan’s own debate, however, remains dominated by the fear that creating new provinces would encourage ethnic nationalism. This concern is understandable given the country’s political history, yet it presents a false choice between national unity and administrative reform. The two are not mutually exclusive. Administrative units need not be organised around ethnic identities; they can instead reflect geography, population density, economic integration and administrative practicality. Designations such as Southern Punjab, Central Punjab, Upper Sindh or Northern Balochistan would shift the debate away from identity politics and towards institutional effectiveness.
Political science has consistently demonstrated that excessive centralisation weakens governance by increasing bureaucratic distance between citizens and the state. Governments become less responsive, accountability diminishes and public confidence in institutions gradually erodes. Decentralisation, when accompanied by clear constitutional safeguards and fiscal accountability, produces the opposite effect. It shortens decision-making chains, strengthens local institutions and enables governments to tailor policy responses to regional realities rather than imposing uniform solutions on vastly different communities.
Pakistan’s own constitutional evolution reflects this understanding. The Eighteenth Amendment significantly expanded provincial autonomy, recognising that decision-making should not remain excessively concentrated at the federal level. Yet decentralisation arguably remains incomplete if provinces themselves continue to exercise overwhelming control over districts that are geographically vast and administratively complex. Genuine devolution is not merely about transferring powers from Islamabad to provincial capitals; it is about ensuring that governance moves progressively closer to the citizen.
Undoubtedly, the creation of new provinces would require substantial financial resources. New legislatures, secretariats, courts and administrative institutions cannot be established without considerable investment. However, the more difficult question is whether Pakistan can continue to absorb the economic and social costs of administrative inefficiency. Delayed infrastructure, unequal development, weak service delivery and persistent regional disparities also impose significant long-term costs, costs that rarely appear in budget documents but are reflected in slower economic growth, declining public trust and widening regional inequalities.
The creation of new provinces should therefore not be approached as a political concession or an electoral strategy. It should be examined as a long-term institutional reform aimed at strengthening state capacity.
Pakistan’s federation has endured because it has repeatedly adapted to changing political realities. The challenge today is no longer simply preserving territorial unity; it is ensuring that the institutions responsible for governing that territory remain capable of serving its rapidly growing population. Administrative reform, pursued with constitutional prudence and national consensus, is not a threat to the federation. It may instead prove to be one of the most important investments in making the federation more responsive, more equitable and ultimately more resilient.
