Too big to deliver

Education, health and most of the social sector transfer to the provinces in the 18th Amendment, which promised that the government

Education, health and most of the social sector transfer to the provinces in the 18th Amendment, which promised that the government would get closer to the citizen. The citizens are waiting from 16 years. According to Economic Survey 2025-26, literacy rate has been recorded at 63% and the percentage remains below in most deprived regions. Investment in education in public funds has dropped from 1.5 % of GDP two years ago to 0.8 % now. The poverty rate increased from 12.4% in 2010-11 to 29 % in 2024-25 and rose in all provinces.

My own research of data for the years 2000 to 2023 shows that the literacy rate was increasing at a rate of approximately 1.5 percentage points per year prior to 2010 and down markedly after the amendment. Literacy did not show a statistically significant change as a result of the SDGs. However, the amount spent on education did not increase in a sustained since 2010 and the labor force increased to some 85 million from approximately 45 million. However, this trend has further concentrated resources in already powerful regions, while Balochistan, rural Sindh, and Southern KP continue to face multidimensional poverty. The lack of fair resource distribution through effective Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) Awards has deepened these regional inequalities.

Arithmetic is part of the problem. The 2023 census showed that the population of Punjab is 127.7 million, which is about 53 % of the country’s total population of 241.5 million. The economist Ahmad Faruqui’s estimate that Pakistani average population per province is 64.8 million, more than nine times that of the United States and 1.6 times that of India or China. Balochistan poses the inverse challenge the 14.9 million people (an average of 43 per km²) are far too dispersed to be seen by one capital, which has 5,779 people per km² in Karachi division. A secretariat in Lahore can’t easily know which school in Dera Ghazi Khan has not a teacher, and so can’t a secretariat in Quetta easily know the same about Kech or Duki.

The development gap is equally stark. The per capita income in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is just 71 and 79 % of the national average, respectively, while Balochistan’s Human Development Index is only 64 % of the national level. Using the $3.65-a-day (2017 PPP) poverty line, poverty stands at 71.4 % in Balochistan and 45.6 % in KP, against 23.4 % in Punjab. Nearly 47.2 % of children aged 6–16 in Balochistan is out of school, compared with 34.6 % in KP and 19.6 % in Punjab.

They will get 57.5 % of the divisible pool as per 7th NFC Award, which is estimated at Rs8.2 trillion in the last fiscal year. During the first nine months of this year, all four had a record combined surplus of Rs1.64 trillion. Some of that is intentional in the sense that the provinces have agreed cash surpluses as part of the fiscal pact agreed to by the IMF, but it’s money that doesn’t flow into classrooms and clinics, and for the citizen, it’s the same as if it weren’t there at all.

This is true for smaller provinces, not as an alternative to locality, but as a requirement to meet in order to make it effective. Whereas a province of 15 or 30 million can be governed and can be scrutinized by its own legislature and press, and compared to its neighbors, a province of 127 million cannot. Smaller units would be less easy to manoeuvre as a network based on a single capital, and more easily held accountable for the actual benefits a district delivers. They would also diminish an unbalanced situation which no federation is at ease in, where one unit having more than half population and thus majority share in National Assembly.

What should the conditions be? A bi-partisan parliamentary commission – which is not a sudden redraw. Consent of the people involved, expressed by their assembly and, if required, directly. The provincial share of 57.5 % was guaranteed in the Constitution as were the entitlements of each of the existing provinces. As the task force recommends, the NFC is to be made as specific and enforceable as Article 160 with a fixed formula for transfers to elected local councils as is the case with Article 140A. And published targets on enrolment, literacy and immunization issues, so that the exercise is judged by delivery not rhetoric, for every new unit.

The 18th Amendment was undoubtedly an amendment to shift power down. The error was to presume that it would continue to move without any human intervention. It has not. In sixteen years, we will be here again, using the same numbers, unless the map and the machinery are redrawn and taken the rest of the way.

“I am from Loralai, Balochistan, and have completed an MPhil in Economics from PIDE. I am working at the Tax Policy Office, Ministry of Finance. The views expressed are solely my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my office.”

I am from Nowshera, Pakistan, and am pursuing an MPhil in Defence and Strategic Studies at Quaid-i-Azam University, specialising in cybersecurity, national security policy, and the climate-security nexus.