The writer is an economist, anchor, jurist, geopolitical analyst and the President of All Pakistan Private Schools’ Federation
president@Pakistanprivateschools.com
Pakistan stands at a precipice; with 250 million citizens, we are no longer a young state testing its institutions. Our outdated laws, entrenched inefficiencies, feeble accountability, and an economic architecture built for 1947, not 2026, cannot be patched with new faces or repainted slogans. The central illusion holding us back is this: that a federation of four provinces, drawn in a different century, can equitably govern 250 million people in an age of climate crisis, digital economy, and global competition. The status quo is no longer tenable. The question is no longer whether change is needed. The question is whether this generation has the legal wisdom and constitutional resolve to choose reinvention over ruin. The 1973 Constitution of Pakistan does not freeze the number of provinces at four. It enshrines federalism as a living principle. Pakistan stands at a constitutional precipice. A nation of more than 250 million people, sprawling across nearly 880,000 square kilometres and organised into only four provinces under a 1973 framework designed for a far smaller population, cannot claim fidelity to the Constitution while clinging to an administrative geometry that systematically frustrates the rights it guarantees. The four-province structure is not a neutral inheritance; it is an active producer of inequality, delayed justice, absent services, and alienated citizens. Restructuring the federation into more manageable units is no longer a political preference. It has become a legal and constitutional obligation under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, reinforced by the judgments of the superior courts and the state’s international human-rights commitments. Article 1 of the Constitution declares Pakistan a Federal Republic whose territories comprise the Provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Punjab and Sindh, the Islamabad Capital Territory, and such States and territories as are or may be included in Pakistan. Clause (3) empowers Parliament to admit new States or areas on such terms as it thinks fit. Article 239(4) of the Constitution explicitly provides the mechanism: Parliament may by law alter the boundaries of a Province upon a resolution passed by 2/3rd majority in the Provincial Assembly. The path to new provinces is therefore expressly constitutional: it requires parliamentary action coupled with provincial consent. The absence of an explicit “creation of provinces” clause comparable to Articles 2 and 3 of the Indian Constitution does not convert the existing map into an immutable sacred text. It simply demands that the federation follow the rigorous amendment process the Constitution itself prescribes. Failure to initiate that process when the existing units demonstrably cannot deliver the rights the Constitution promises is itself a dereliction of constitutional duty. The 18th Amendment strengthened provincial autonomy, yet Articles 32 and 140A simultaneously imposed a mandatory duty to establish local government systems and to devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility to elected local representatives. Article 140A mandates devolution of political, administrative and financial responsibility to local governments. For 50 years, we have violated both the letter and spirit of this article by centralising power in provincial capitals. The Supreme Court has treated Article 140A as a substantive constitutional command, not a pious aspiration. In Lahore Development Authority v. Imrana Tiwana (2015 SCMR 1739) and subsequent pronouncements, the Court held that provinces cannot render local governments powerless, that Articles 137 and 140A must be read in harmony, and that meaningful devolution is essential to representative and participatory democracy. Persistent underfunding of local governments—often below 10 per cent of provincial budgets—and repeated legislative attempts to recentralise power constitute ongoing violations of this mandate. International law reinforces these domestic obligations. The Supreme Court has repeatedly underscored that federalism is not a static arrangement but a living compact for effective governance. In the landmark Al-Jehad Trust case (1999 SCMR 1379), the Court held that the people of the then Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan) are citizens of Pakistan for all intents and purposes and are entitled to the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, including the right to participate in the governance of their area through an independent judiciary. Two decades later, in Civil Aviation Authority v. Supreme Appellate Court Gilgit-Baltistan (PLD 2019 SC 357), a seven-member bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar reaffirmed that jurisdiction, directed the Federation to promulgate a suitable constitutional-framework order within a fortnight, and endorsed the recommendations of the Sartaj Aziz Committee for provisional provincial status pending final settlement of the Kashmir dispute—expressly without prejudicing Pakistan’s international position. The Court stressed that fundamental rights must be real, not illusory, and that a governance structure of a constitutional nature is indispensable. The continued constitutional limbo of Gilgit-Baltistan, despite these clear directives, stands as a cautionary illustration of the cost of inertia. Legal scholars and the Supreme Court in PLD 2019 SC 189 have held that “good governance” and “decentralisation” are essential features of the constitutional scheme. When a structure becomes dysfunctional and denies citizens access to justice, services, and representation, it breaches the Constitution’s promise of a “Federal Republic” based on autonomy and equity. Properly designed through constitutional amendment, with equitable NFC shares, robust local governments under Articles 32 and 140A, and safeguards for national unity, they are the means of fulfilling the federal promise. Pakistan cannot indefinitely govern 250 million people with a colonial-era map. The four-province illusion is no longer sustainable under the Constitution. The superior courts have already charted the path for Gilgit-Baltistan and for genuine local democracy. The same constitutional logic demands a broader redesign of the federation. Until the system acquires the capacity to transform itself in accordance with the Constitution’s own requirements, the rotation of personalities will remain an illusion of progress. Great nations are not the accidental sum of strong individuals; they are the deliberate creation of adaptive systems that secure the rights of every citizen. The choice before this generation is therefore stark: honour the legal and constitutional obligation to build a federation fit for its people, or continue to administer slow institutional poison in the name of an outdated map. The Constitution, the judgments of the superior courts, and the international commitments Pakistan has freely assumed leave no neutral ground. Reinvention is not optional. It is obligatory. Pakistan is bound by international law to ensure the right to development, equality, and self-governance. ICCPR Article 25: Every citizen has the right to take part in public affairs. When a district of 7-10 million people has the same provincial representation as a district of 500,000, that right is diluted to meaninglessness. ICESCR Article 2(1): States must take steps “to the maximum of available resources” to achieve rights to health, education, and housing. With our current fiscal model, 60% of provincial budgets are consumed by salaries and debt servicing before a single school is built. This is a failure of structural design, not just policy. UN Declaration on the Right to Development, 1986: Development requires active, free and meaningful participation. Pakistan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Effective participation in public affairs, equal access to public services, and the progressive realisation of the rights to health, education and an adequate standard of living are not optional policy goals; they are binding commitments.
Pakistan now stands at a fork: redesign the federation for the 21st century, or watch an oversized, outdated system suffocate the nation it was meant to serve. New provinces are not a luxury. They are survival infrastructure. The current administrative structure—comprising four provinces (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan), the federal capital territory of Islamabad, and the semi-autonomous regions of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan—struggles to meet the needs of a diverse and rapidly growing populace. Pakistan is divided into several administrative divisions. There are 38 administrative divisions in total, which are further subdivided into districts, tehsils, and finally union councils, including: Punjab 10; Sindh 6; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 7; Balochistan 8; Gilgit-Baltistan 3; and Azad Kashmir with 3 divisions. According to the 2023 Census, there are 129 cities. Punjab alone, with an estimated population of over 120 million, is larger than many sovereign nations, rendering its governance unwieldy and inefficient. To keep 250M people in a 4-province box is not federalism. It is administrative colonisation. We are trying to govern 250-plus million people, 38 administrative divisions, and a landmass of 880,000 sq km with a colonial blueprint built for 75 million. The math no longer works. Punjab alone is 120 million people — bigger than Germany, Japan, and Mexico. It has 36 districts run from one desk in Lahore. Balochistan is the size of Germany but has the population of Lahore. Sindh bleeds between Karachi and the interior. GB remains constitutionally stateless despite Supreme Court orders. The result is predictable: delayed hospitals, absent teachers, clogged courts, and a state that is present everywhere in law and absent everywhere on the ground. Our neighbours solved this decades ago. India has 28 states; Indonesia has 38 provinces; Turkey has 81; Even war-torn Afghanistan has 34( Whereas, Pakistan has only 4. This is not about dividing Pakistan but about saving it. The status quo is not neutral. It is actively producing inequality, neglect, and unrest. A citizen in South Punjab, Gilgit, or interior Sindh is 400km and 3 layers of bureaucracy away from their decision-maker. That is not meaningful participation. International law does not dictate how many provinces we must have. But it does obligate us to create a governance structure capable of delivering rights. A state has a fiduciary duty to its citizens to spend public money efficiently. Pakistan is not only facing a leadership crisis, but also facing a geometry crisis. The same logic applies with greater force to the oversized provinces. Punjab alone, with a population exceeding 120 million—larger than Germany, Japan or Mexico—and 36 districts administered from a single provincial capital, cannot satisfy the state’s positive obligations under Articles 9 (right to life and liberty), 14 (dignity of man), and 25 (equality before the law). When hospitals remain delayed, teachers absent, and courts clogged because decision-making is too remote, the State is not merely inefficient; it is failing to secure the conditions necessary for the enjoyment of fundamental rights. A federal structure that leaves vast populations effectively ungoverned or under-governed cannot claim compliance. Comparative experience—India’s 28 states, Indonesia’s 38 provinces, Turkey’s 81 provinces, even Afghanistan’s 34 provinces—demonstrates that smaller, more coherent units improve accountability and service delivery. These examples are not prescriptions for mechanical imitation; they illustrate the universal principle that governance scale must match population and geographic realities if constitutional and international guarantees are to be meaningful. The resistance of entrenched elites and bureaucratic inertia does not erase the obligation. The Constitution is not a charter for the convenience of those who currently hold power. When the Sartaj Aziz Committee recommended provisional provincial status for Gilgit-Baltistan, when successive assemblies and public surveys have demanded South Punjab and other units, and when superior courts have directed structural remedies, the continued failure to act is a choice—one that perpetuates inequality and risks the very cohesion the status quo claims to protect. New provinces are not an invitation to fragmentation. A 2024 UN Development Programme (UNDP) report praised Afghanistan’s provincial system for facilitating targeted aid distribution, even amidst conflict—a stark contrast to Pakistan’s centralised approach. Comparisons with Afghanistan (34 provinces), India (28 states), Indonesia (38 provinces), Turkey (81 provinces), and developed nations affirm that smaller units work. China’s 23 provinces (plus autonomous regions) manage 1.4 billion people effectively, suggesting Pakistan’s 250 million can sustain 8-10 provinces; or provinces can be established on the basis of 38 administrative divisions. A 2023 World Bank report on South Asian governance noted that Punjab’s administrative complexity contributes to delays in infrastructure projects, uneven healthcare access, and inconsistent law enforcement. A 2024 Asian Development Bank (ADB) report noted that GB’s hydropower potential—over 40,000 MW—remains untapped due to federal neglect, while its tourism sector languishes without provincial autonomy to attract investment. The Supreme Court’s jurisdiction now extends to GB, but without full provincial integration, residents lack equal access to justice or resources. This inertia reflects broader resistance to new provinces, driven by fears of altering Pakistan’s Kashmir stance. India, with 1.44 billion people (2025 estimate) and 3.287 million sq km, operates 28 states and 8 union territories. States like Kerala (34,630 sq km, 35 million) and Tamil Nadu (130,058 sq km, 77 million) demonstrate how manageable units can excel in governance. Kerala’s literacy rate of 96% and life expectancy of 77 years (2023 data) far surpass Pakistan’s national averages (59% and 67 years, respectively), thanks to decentralised policies empowering local bodies. India’s states have fiscal autonomy under the 7th Schedule of its Constitution, allowing them to tailor budgets to regional priorities—a model Pakistan could adapt to address disparities between urban Karachi and rural Sindh. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 280 million people (2025 estimate) across 1.9 million sq km, manages 38 provinces. Provinces like Bali (5,780 sq km, 4.5 million) leverage their autonomy to boost tourism and infrastructure, contributing 3% to Indonesia’s GDP despite their small size (2024 IMF data). Turkey, with 81 provinces for 85 million people (2025 estimate), exemplifies granularity in governance. Each province, averaging 1 million people, has elected governors and councils, ensuring efficient public service delivery. Istanbul Province (5,461 sq km, 15 million) rivals Punjab in population density but benefits from focused administration, achieving a GDP per capita of $12,000 (2024) compared to Punjab’s $1,500. These examples underscore a key lesson: smaller units enhance accountability and responsiveness. Pakistan, with only four provinces for 2450 million people, averages 60 million per province—far exceeding the 1-40 million range in these countries. Reducing this ratio through new provinces could mirror their successes in equitable resource distribution and service delivery. Developed countries further illustrate the efficacy of decentralised governance. The United States, with 331 million people (2025 estimate) across 9.8 million sq km, comprises 50 states. States like California (423,970 sq km, 39 million) wield significant autonomy, managing budgets larger than many nations’ GDPs ($3.6 trillion in 2024). California, with 39M people, has functional sub-state governance. California’s decentralised healthcare system, bolstered by state-level innovation, contrasts with Pakistan’s overburdened federal framework, where Punjab’s 120 million rely on a single provincial health ministry. The U.S. model of federalism—where states experiment with policies like renewable energy or education reform—offers Pakistan a blueprint for devolving power without undermining national unity. Germany, with 84 million people (2025 estimate) across 357,582 sq km, operates 16 states (Bundesländer). Bavaria (70,548 sq km, 13 million) exemplifies how regional identity and governance coexist within a federal structure. Its GDP per capita of $55,000 (2024) reflects robust local administration, dwarfing Pakistan’s national average of $1,600. Germany’s states control education, policing, and taxation, ensuring tailored solutions—a stark contrast to Pakistan’s centralised bureaucracy, where federal-provincial tussles delay projects like the Diamer-Bhasha Dam. These nations demonstrate that federalism thrives on balance: a strong centre complemented by empowered subnational units. The call for creating new provinces has gained traction as a potential solution to these systemic issues, promising improved administration, localised decision-making, and better public service delivery. This column argues that Pakistan urgently requires provincial restructuring to address its governance woes. However, resistance from political elites, bureaucratic inertia, and the failure to implement key reforms—such as those recommended by the Sartaj Aziz Committee for Gilgit-Baltistan—pose significant hurdles. A comprehensive strategy, rooted in stakeholder consultation and empowerment of local governments, is essential to unlock Pakistan’s potential as an inclusive and efficient federal state.
Article 1 of the Constitution declares Pakistan a Federal Republic whose territories comprise the Provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Punjab and Sindh, the Islamabad Capital Territory, and such States and territories as are or may be included in Pakistan. Clause (3) empowers Parliament to admit new States or areas on such terms as it thinks fit. Article 239(4) of the Constitution explicitly provides the mechanism: The path to new provinces is therefore expressly constitutional. The 18th Amendment strengthened provincial autonomy, yet Articles 32 and 140A simultaneously imposed a mandatory duty to establish local government systems and to devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility to elected local representatives.
A 2022 survey by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) found that 68% of South Punjab residents supported a separate province, citing neglect in education and healthcare funding compared to central Punjab. Yet, progress remains stalled, highlighting the need for a broader national conversation on provincial restructuring. The 2015 Sartaj Aziz Committee recommended provisional provincial status, including representation in Parliament and federal bodies like the National Finance Commission (NFC). The Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling reinforced this, affirming GB residents’ citizenship rights and urging legislative action within a fortnight. Yet, as of March 2025, no concrete steps have materialised beyond the 2018 Gilgit-Baltistan Order, which transferred some powers to the local assembly but stopped short of provincial status. GB’s exclusion from the NFC and lack of parliamentary seats perpetuate its underdevelopment. A 2023 Gallup Pakistan poll found that 55% of Punjab’s political leaders opposed new provinces, citing “administrative complexity” and “national unity”—arguments critics dismiss as self-serving. Bureaucratic interference compounds the issue. The 18th Amendment (2010) devolved powers to provinces, but its promise of empowered local governments remains unfulfilled. The 2021 Punjab Local Government Act and similar laws in other provinces centralise control under provincial bureaucracies, undermining elected councils. A 2024 PIDE study estimated that local governments receive less than 10% of provincial budgets, with financial ambiguities favouring bureaucrats over grassroots leaders. This centralisation risks pushing Pakistan toward a unitary system, contradicting its federal ethos. Breaking this deadlock requires a parliamentary committee, as suggested by governance experts in 2023, to consult stakeholders—politicians, media, civil society, and intelligentsia—and draft a roadmap. Pakistan’s public service delivery lags regionally and globally. The 2024 Human Development Index (HDI) ranks Pakistan 164th (0.544), behind India (134th, 0.644) and Indonesia (112th, 0.705). Healthcare access exemplifies the crisis: Punjab’s doctor-to-patient ratio is 1:1,800 (2023 WHO data), worse than India’s 1:1,000, with rural areas like Rajanpur faring worse. Education fares no better, with a 2024 UNESCO report noting Pakistan’s 22 million out-of-school children—40% in Punjab—due to inadequate provincial oversight. New provinces could address these gaps. Smaller units, like a proposed South Punjab province (est. 40 million people), could prioritise regional needs—e.g., cotton-based industries or irrigation—over Punjab’s urban-centric focus. A 2023 ADB simulation suggested that dividing Punjab into three provinces could cut administrative response times by 30%, boosting service delivery. Law and order, too, would benefit: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s 2018 FATA merger reduced militancy by 25% (2024 Interior Ministry data) through localised policing, a model replicable elsewhere. Pakistan’s governance crisis demands bold reform. Creating new provinces—starting with South Punjab, Hazara, and GB—offers a path to efficiency and inclusion. Provincial restructuring must pair with robust local governance. Articles 32 and 140A of the Constitution mandate local government systems, but implementation falters. The 2001 Devolution Plan under Musharraf empowered districts, only to be reversed by subsequent regimes. Today, local bodies lack fiscal autonomy, relying on provincial handouts. A 2024 Transparency International report flagged bureaucratic corruption as a key barrier, with 15% of local funds misappropriated annually. Countries like Indonesia and Germany thrive because provinces delegate to municipalities. Pakistan’s 129 district councils and 619 urban councils (2023 data) could mirror this, but only if provinces relinquish control. Failure to do so risks a unitary drift, where Islamabad and provincial capitals monopolise power, alienating citizens. Pakistan’s current provincial structure is a relic of colonial administration, formalised under the 1973 Constitution. Punjab, spanning 205,344 square kilometres and housing over half of Pakistan’s population, exemplifies the governance challenges posed by oversized administrative units. Its sheer scale—larger than countries like Greece (131,957 sq km) or Bangladesh (147,570 sq km)—creates a disconnect between policymakers in Lahore and citizens in distant districts like Bahawalpur or Dera Ghazi Khan. For instance, the province’s 36 districts are overseen by a single provincial government, straining its capacity to address localised needs effectively. Contrast this with Sindh (140,914 sq km, 50 million people), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (101,741 sq km, 40 million), and Balochistan (347,190 sq km, 15 million). While Balochistan’s vast geography and sparse population present unique challenges, its governance issues stem more from underdevelopment and central neglect than size alone. Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, though smaller than Punjab, still grapple with ethnic and regional disparities that could be mitigated by further subdivision. The creation of new provinces by converting existing administrative divisions—such as Punjab’s nine divisions (e.g., Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi)—or merging districts into coherent units could streamline governance and bring decision-making closer to the people. With Punjab’s divisions, Sindh’s Hyderabad region, and Balochistan’s ethnic zones as candidates, Pakistan could double its provinces, aligning with regional norms. Afghanistan, with a population of 41 million (2025 estimate) spread across 652,864 sq km, is divided into 34 provinces. Despite its instability, this structure allows for localised governance tailored to diverse ethnic groups like Pashtuns, Tajiks, and Hazaras. Each province, averaging 1.2 million people, has its own governor and council, enabling quicker responses to security and development needs. A parliamentary committee should: Engage political parties, media, and civil society to build consensus, addressing elite resistance with data-driven arguments; Amend Article 1 of the Constitution to define new provinces, ensuring fiscal shares via the NFC; Allocate 25% of provincial budgets to local governments, per 2024 PIDE recommendations, with clear financial oversight; and Implement GB’s provisional status as a test case, leveraging Supreme Court rulings and Aziz Committee insights. Pakistan’s administrative structure is a bottleneck to its development. The case for new provinces is not ideological but administrative, fiscal, and moral. New provinces promise better governance, equitable resources, and responsive services, mirroring successes in Turkey, India, Indonesia, and beyond. Yet, without political will, bureaucratic reform, and local empowerment, this vision risks remaining a theoretical exercise. Strong countries are not built by changing faces every five years. They are built by changing systems once, and letting that system work for the next hundred years. This is what India, Indonesia, Germany, and even China understood: governance must match scale. Without empowering local governments with real money and real power under Articles 32 and 140A, new provinces will become new bureaucracies. Gilgit-Baltistan is our test case; South Punjab is our warning; 28 million out-of-school children are our deadline. Pakistan must now choose. We can keep patching a 1973 structure to serve a 2026 population and call it patriotism. Or we can have the courage to restructure — to trade the comfort of the familiar for the efficiency of the functional. Pakistan stands at this precipice, where outdated laws, entrenched inefficiencies, feeble accountability, and an economic architecture ill-suited to the modern world must be dismantled and rebuilt, not merely patched or repainted with new faces. For until a system acquires the rare and courageous capacity to transform itself from within, the rotation of individuals will remain a tragic illusion of progress, yielding the same cycles of disappointment. In the end, great countries are never the accidental sum of strong personalities; they are the deliberate creation of resilient, inclusive, and adaptive systems that outlast any single ruler and elevate the well-being of every citizen. The question is no longer whether change is needed, but whether this generation possesses the wisdom and resolve to choose reinvention over ruin. As Pakistan grapples with the challenges of a rapidly growing population, its outdated administrative structure threatens to undermine the nation’s progress. The law gives us the tools. The Constitution gives us the mandate. History gives us the warning.
