Pakistan’s recurring debate over creating new provinces is too often reduced to questions of ethnicity, language and political bargaining. That framing obscures the real issue. The challenge is not how many provinces Pakistan should have, but whether its governance architecture has kept pace with the country’s demographic and administrative transformation.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s recent call for additional administrative units has revived a politically sensitive discussion. Predictably, much of the debate has centred on constitutional hurdles and fears of ethnic fragmentation. Yet the more important question is whether Pakistan can continue governing a population that has grown from roughly 65 million in the early 1970s to nearly 250 million today through an administrative structure that has changed remarkably little.

Administrative reform should not be viewed as a political concession or an exercise in redrawing maps. It is fundamentally an investment in state capacity. As populations grow and economies become more complex, governments must periodically redesign institutions to remain accessible, responsive and capable of delivering public services.

Governance has outgrown the existing structure

Pakistan’s first-tier administrative structure was designed for a country that was substantially smaller and less economically complex than it is today. Provincial governments now administer populations larger than many sovereign states, placing extraordinary pressure on institutions responsible for education, healthcare, policing, infrastructure and development.

The consequences are visible across the country. Oversized administrative units inevitably increase the distance between citizens and decision-makers. Provincial governments struggle to deliver services equitably across vast territories, while remote and less-developed regions frequently receive less administrative attention than provincial capitals and major urban centres.

The governance challenge became more pronounced after the 18th Constitutional Amendment. Although powers and financial resources were substantially devolved from the federation to the provinces, meaningful political, administrative and fiscal devolution from provinces to........

© Middle East Monitor