Share the post “Pakistan Does Not Need More Provincial Thrones—It Needs Power Below the Provinces”
Pakistan is once again being invited to solve a crisis of government by creating even more government. Draw new borders, appoint new governors, elect new chief ministers, construct new assemblies, establish new secretariats and then hope that the same political machinery which failed to carry authority from a provincial capital to a district will suddenly become efficient because the capital has moved a few hundred kilometres closer. That is not devolution. It is the multiplication of thrones.
The argument surrounding Sindh, Karachi, Islamabad and Pakistan’s divisions has exposed a truth more important than any proposed map: Pakistan transferred enormous political and fiscal space from the federation to the provinces through the Eighteenth Amendment and the NFC framework, but the promised second transfer—from provincial capitals to elected local governments—remains incomplete, inconsistent and politically resisted. The result is a federation in which Islamabad complains that it lacks fiscal room, provinces defend their constitutional shares, chief ministers hold the purse strings, and citizens still cannot reliably hold an empowered mayor, district government or neighbourhood institution responsible for their school, road, water supply or waste collection.
Core claim: Pakistan’s immediate governance priority should be constitutionally protected, elected and fiscally empowered local government in every province. New provinces may still deserve a serious constitutional debate, but they are not a substitute for devolution below the provincial level.
What Miftah Ismail Is Proposing—and Where the Difficulty Begins
In an exchange prompted by the latest Sindh debate, former finance minister Miftah Ismail clarified that he had not proposed turning Karachi into a federal territory. His party, Awaam Pakistan, opposes the creation of provinces outside proper constitutional procedure, he said, but favours turning every division into a federally funded administrative unit receiving its “due share.” He also identified two genuine defects: provinces have not built meaningfully empowered local governments, and Provincial Finance Commission awards—the mechanism through which provincial resources should move downward—have not been institutionalised with the consistency and credibility required.
That diagnosis is valuable; the financing prescription is constitutionally harder. Divisions are administrative subdivisions of provinces, not constituent units placed alongside the provinces in the federal fiscal architecture. Article 160 of the Constitution creates the National Finance Commission and concerns distribution between the federation and provinces. Article 140A requires each province to establish a local-government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility to elected local representatives. Read together, the constitutional direction is clear: the federation shares with provinces through the NFC, while provinces must create and empower local governments. A plan for routine federal transfers directly to divisions would therefore require a precisely drafted legal and fiscal mechanism, not a slogan about “due shares.”
| Reform route | Constitutional and fiscal reality | Principal risk |
|---|---|---|
| Empower local governments under Article 140A | Provinces legislate and transfer political, administrative and financial authority; PFC-type formulas distribute provincial resources downward | Provincial executives may retain functions, staff or money while claiming formal compliance |
| Federally fund projects located in divisions | The federation may finance lawful federal programmes from its own revenues and development allocations | Parallel administration can blur responsibility and invite political patronage |
| Give divisions a direct claim on the divisible pool | The NFC and potentially related constitutional arrangements would need redesign, depending on the mechanism | Provincial shares could become the battlefield, while local accountability remains unresolved |
| Create new provinces | Constitutional procedure, territorial consent requirements, representation, assets, liabilities and fiscal shares must all be settled | New governors, cabinets and assemblies may reproduce the same centralisation on a smaller map |
| Make Islamabad a province | Requires far more than renaming the capital territory; representation, executive structure and fiscal treatment would need coherent legal design | A chief minister, governor and assembly could enlarge an already heavy administrative structure without improving municipal delivery |
This is why Raja Sahib’s historical warning about pushing Sindh back towards the 1840s under the Talpurs lands politically, even if it does not end the policy argument. Sindh cannot be treated as empty administrative territory to be redesigned from Islamabad without constitutional legitimacy, Sindhi consent and respect for its history. But the invocation of provincial integrity cannot become a licence for provincial centralisation either. Protecting Sindh from arbitrary fragmentation and protecting Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Mirpurkhas and rural districts from power hoarded in Karachi are not contradictory positions. They are two parts of federalism.
For the deeper Karachi layer, read The Real Issue with Karachi: Governance Without Power, a City Without a Voice. For the wider restructuring dispute, read Pakistan’s 12-Province Debate Is Real and Pakistan’s System Has Collapsed—But More Provinces Could Simply Create More Thrones.
What the Literacy Graphs Show—and What They Cannot Prove
The supplied HIES/PBS charts track literacy as a percentage of the population aged ten years and older; they do not count the absolute number of literate people, measure current school enrolment or directly assess whether children can comprehend an age-appropriate text. That distinction is crucial because a literacy series can improve while learning remains weak, and it can conceal enormous differences between urban Karachi and rural Sindh, between men and women, and between prosperous central districts and peripheral regions.
