Sunday, April 04, 2010

Solution of Pakistan's administrative problems?

Recently, there has been much talk in media of increasing the number of provinces of Pakistan to solve the many administrative problems. Both politicians and TV anchors have repeated this plea. Now that the constitutional reforms have been agreed upon, maybe the Government should focus on this issue. It is often said that the provinces of Pakistan are too big to manage, either population-wise or area-wise. This has resulted in the focus of govt resources on provincial capitals and around. Creating new provinces will also solve the problem of separatists and smaller provinces complaining about bigger provinces. No province will then become the center of power. All the developed countries of the world and neighbours of Pakistan have many more provinces or states than us.

So how should new provinces be created? There could be many ways and the parliament would know the best. But here are two scenarios that come to my mind:

Scenario 1: Divide each of the provinces into two parts. Since Punjab is the biggest, it may be divided into three parts to get a balance with other provinces. Then we would have 9 provinces: Quetta, Kalat; Hyderabad, Sukkur; Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan; Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan Divisions.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/modern/pakadmin/pakadmin.html


Scenario 2: Another scenario presented in the media is to convert all the previous divisions into provinces. This scenario has two potential subscenarios: First is the divisions before 1990s. Then we would have 20 provinces:
Quetta, Kalat, Sibi, Makran,
Hyderabad, Sukkur, Karachi,
Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Malakand,
Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala, Dera Gazi Khan, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Bahawalpur.

The second subscenario is the divisions that existed till 2000. These were 26 in number, thus creating 26 provinces:

Quetta, Kalat, Sibi, Makran, Naseerabad, Zhob;
Hyderabad, Sukkur, Karachi, Larkana, Mirpur Khas;
Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Malakand,
Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala, Dera Gazi Khan, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Bahawalpur.

Many people complain that only 5 cities are being heavily developed, and most provincial funds are spent on the provincial capitals. Creating 26 provinces would give an immediate benefit that instead of 5 cities, we would have at least 27 cities which would be developing fast.

7 comments:

Abdul Wakeel said...

AOA, I have given this idea 5 years before but unfortunately no news paper accepted to publish that. It can really contribute to the solution of Pakistan's problem.Of course with smaller units of administration, not only we can boom our economy but also can decrease the crime rate.
The second important factor is that Pakistan was achieved with the slogan of Islam. Instead of different cultures, different languages etc. Islam is common in all provinces and every one all over the country has strong affiliation with Islam. Pakistan can only be kept united if we strengthened Islamic values in Pakistan on Government level.

Anonymous said...

Well i dont agree with breaking down provinces...its is not the real problem...I don't get what difference would breaking provinces make..if u think it would better benefit the remote Pakistani areas then think again..every MNA has an alloted budget in think its 1 crore rs/month for development in there area and in most of cases we all know where it goes...So adding more provinces will mean more MPA's and more corruption...I think that government should emphasis on good governance on the current 4 provinces rather than trying to break down into smaller chunks ...sure in future if all 4 provinces have good governance then may be you can break the provinces into smaller chunks for more growth but now is not the time.Breaking now will only lead to further fragmentation in an already fragmented and split society... eventually leading the new provinces demanding for separation..

Anonymous said...

I think it is a good idea especially if it means better governance. There is a lot chatter about one province being too big and another too small, perhaps this would settle the issue.

- Usman
reformistani.wordpress.com

Unknown said...

Hey Yasir!

Azme Alishan would like to congratulate you on the win! You truly deserve it! Such initiatives like Pakistan's first ever blog awards make us proud to be Pakistanis! We should have such events more often. All of us together can take this country to unimaginable heights of success!

Azme Alishan Azme Pakistan!

Please do visit our website as well www.azmealishan.com

Muhammad khabbab said...

Yasir congratulations on winning the pakistan blog awards. Keep it up.

Yasir Niaz Khan said...

Thanks for the congrats and encouragement.

Adsense in urdu said...

Aslam-o-Alekum;
first of all I think it is a good idea especially if it means better governance then i tell Mr.Yasir congratulations on winning the Pakistan blog awards.