As Pakistan Reopens the Door to New Provinces, Experts Warn: More Maps Won’t Fix Broken Governance
After decades of hesitation, Pakistan’s federal government — led by Federal Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan — has announced that the creation of smaller provinces is now “definitely” inevitable, reviving a long-debated plan to redraw the country’s administrative map.
Addressing a convention of his party in Sheikhupura, he argued that splitting large provinces like Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into three parts each would strengthen “administrative control” and ensure faster delivery of public services.
Khan insisted that the existing provincial boundaries no longer meet the needs of a modern, populous country, claiming that all neighbouring nations manage multiple smaller provinces — implying that Pakistan should follow suit.
According to him, the proposed restructuring aims to make the government more responsive and address regional inequalities.
But the proposal has triggered fierce warning signals from analysts, bureaucrats, and civil-society observers who argue that the problem Pakistan faces is not the size or number of provinces — it’s the weakness of its institutions, the lack of effective local governance, and persistent failure to uphold the rule of law and accountability across regions.
Veteran bureaucrat Syed Akhtar Ali Shah, for instance, contends that past attempts at administrative reorganisation under military regimes only deepened public grievances rather than solving them, and criticized the new push as overly hasty given the country’s deeper structural issues.
Think-tank voices echo these concerns.
The head of a prominent research institute argued that without genuine devolution of power and strengthening of local government — as envisaged under constitutional provisions such as Article 140-A — simply redrawing boundaries will amount to little more than “rearranging administrative furniture,” likely creating new layers of bureaucracy, overhead costs, and political instability.
Moreover, critics warn, the timing of the announcement — when the federal regime faces mounting dissent in provinces like Balochistan and KP, and general instability — raises questions about motive.
Some suggest the move could be less about better governance and more about consolidating central control, diluting regional identity, and weakening provincial resistance.
As Pakistan stands on the verge of another constitutional and administrative upheaval — possibly its biggest since the 1950s-era One Unit scheme — the debate reveals a stark reality: more provinces will not magically solve poverty, inequality, regional grievances, or institutional decay.
Unless the underlying problems of governance, law enforcement, and democratic accountability are addressed, the new map may end up redrawing old scars — not healing them.
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