New provinces or empowered districts in Pakistan?

In Pakistan, a country with a population of approximately 260 million, the debate has once again gained momentum over whether the existing administrative system, comprising four provinces, is sufficient for effective governance and the provision of basic services to the public, or whether the country needs new provinces and more empowered local governments.  Federal Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal recently proposed a national political debate on administrative reforms, saying that should be given to establishing 12 to 15 new provinces in Pakistan or, alternatively, creating 160 empowered district governments.  According to him, the existing system has failed to deliver the desired results in health, education and other social sectors. 

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who initiated a debate on restructuring the administrative system in July, says that if new administrative units are created, the process should be carried out with public support.  Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has also supported transferring powers to the grassroots level and greater decentralization.

However, the government has not yet taken any formal decision to create new provinces, and there is also no consensus within the ruling coalition on the nature of the reforms or when and how they should be implemented.  Former Finance Minister and economist Miftah Ismail told DW that smaller provinces cannot be a substitute for empowered local governments. In his view, even if the number of provinces is increased, a strong local government system would still be necessary for effective governance and the delivery of services to the people. 

Abid Qaim Suleri, Executive Director of the Islamabad-based Sustainable Development Policy Institute, agrees with this point. According to him, without effective local governments, whether the country has one province or 25, decision-making will remain concentrated at the provincial level. Suleri says the proposal for new provinces should not be assessed solely on the basis of administrative convenience. It should also be examined in terms of the additional costs of establishing new secretariats, assemblies and bureaucracies, the potential improvement in local tax collection, and whether people would actually receive justice and basic services more efficiently. 

According to Muhammad Shoaib, a political science expert at Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan’s history suggests that empowering local governments may be a more effective approach when it comes to governance and public service delivery. The issue of new provinces is not merely administrative; it is also linked to the distribution of political and economic power. New provinces would mean new governments and assemblies, while political representation at the federal level and the distribution of national resources could also be affected. Changes to provincial boundaries could also revive long-standing disputes over water, taxation and the distribution of natural resources. Political resistance is already becoming evident. The Sindh Assembly has opposed the creation of new provinces or administrative units, while various political parties have warned against dividing the existing provincial boundaries. 

According to Miftah Ismail, changing Sindh’s provincial boundaries in particular could be a dangerous course. In his view, rather than dividing the existing provinces, a safer and more effective solution would be to give genuine powers to local governments within them. Muhammad Shoaib also warns that the creation of new provinces could lead to lengthy and difficult political negotiations over the distribution of financial resources, water, jobs and regional benefits. If the process remains incomplete, existing ethnic and regional tensions could intensify further. Thus, the real question in Pakistan is not simply whether the country should retain four provinces or create 12 to 15. The fundamental question is how power, resources and accountability can be brought closer to the people, and whether the same objective can be achieved more effectively through empowered local governments without changing the country’s administrative map.