TRAVEL from Lahore to Peshawar and you feel the state change its attitude. In Punjab, despite flaws, the state tries to deliver. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the state makes you wait. You wait for your licence, for your hospital card to work, for flour prices to fall, for your daughter’s school to reopen, for the road to reopen after a clash. While citizens wait, the government in Peshawar stays busy elsewhere. Take a driving licence. In Punjab, it has become simple. Free medical fitness certificates are now issued inside government hospitals, with thirteen counters opened in Lahore in the first phase. In KP, more than 117,000 printed cards remained pending for months. People who passed the test and paid the fee drove with a paper slip and paid challans to the same police that had not printed their cards. In January 2026, the Chief Minister had to issue an emergency division-wise schedule to clear licences in Hazara, Malakand, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Mardan within a month. A card that should take days took half a year.

The same neglect shows in hospitals. Punjab’s system is overloaded, but its supply chain and attendance still work. In KP, the Sehat Insaf Card has become a card of disappointment. The government announced free treatment for six million families but reached only about 2.2........

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