Creating More Provinces Is Not the Cure

By Nabeel Badr

The writer is pursuing an MBA from the University of Hertfordshire and holds a BBA degree in Business Management from the University of Plymouth, UK. He completed his intermediate education at Forman Christian College, Lahore. He is currently based in the United Kingdom.

The Interior Minister’s public admission that Pakistan’s existing governance system has completely collapsed is difficult to dispute. But acknowledging failure is easy; the immediate question is one of accountability—those in power must ask themselves who brought the state to this point. This collapse is not a sudden development but the outcome of a long process of institutional decay.

Declaring that a system has failed is easy; presenting a viable alternative is far more difficult. The assertion that creating new provinces will resolve the crisis is a deeply flawed premise. Pakistan has already experienced the consequences associated with such top-down administrative restructuring. In 1958, provinces were abolished by the government to establish the One Unit scheme, an experiment that ultimately resulted in political and structural failure.

Today, the administrative machinery fails entirely to deliver basic public services. Resolving such a deep structural crisis cannot be achieved through hasty policy decisions. It requires an inclusive, national-level debate involving all political forces, key institutions, and decision-makers, deliberating collectively on a genuine path forward.

Addressing Pakistan’s governance challenges requires strengthening institutions rather than focusing solely on administrative boundaries.

Afghanistan, roughly 25 per cent smaller than Pakistan in area and about 5.7 times smaller in population, is divided into 34 provinces. Proponents of creating more provinces often cite it as evidence that smaller administrative units improve governance. However, this comparison is misleading. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with weak institutions and limited administrative capacity.

In contrast, Canada—despite being nearly twelve times larger than Pakistan in landmass—has only ten provinces. As a G7 country with strong institutions and a comprehensive welfare system, it shows that effective governance does not depend on the number of administrative divisions.

Taken together, these examples indicate that there is no clear or consistent link between the number of provinces and either state effectiveness or economic development.

History proves that repeatedly altering a country’s constitutional framework yields dangerous consequences. The 1973 Constitution has already undergone so much structural modification over the decades that it cannot withstand further constitutional restructuring without risking severe instability. If the genuine intention behind proposing new administrative units is to devolve power and bring governance closer to the public, that can easily be accomplished through ordinary statutory legislation rather than reopening constitutional disputes.

Furthermore, the historic provincial identities of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa carry centuries of cultural heritage and have developed distinct significance over the past seventy-five years. Altering these historical boundaries and identities risks unleashing intense social friction and regional division—a challenge that neither the constitutional framework nor the state’s stability can easily accommodate.