SMALLER ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS
Pakistan’s governance challenges are often discussed in terms of resources, institutional capacity and political stability, but one structural problem receives comparatively less attention. The country’s provincial administrations are expected to govern populations and geographical areas of enormous scale from a limited number of administrative centres. As populations grow and public expectations rise, this arrangement is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Citizens living far from provincial capitals frequently experience government as distant, slow and difficult to access. What appears efficient on a map can become cumbersome in practice.
The consequences are visible in everyday life. Public hospitals remain overcrowded, schools lack adequate supervision, infrastructure projects face prolonged delays and police forces struggle to respond effectively across large jurisdictions. Administrative authority is often concentrated in major cities, while peripheral districts must compete for attention, funding and political influence.
When a provincial bureaucracy is responsible for tens of millions of people with widely different social, economic and geographical conditions, even competent officials face serious limits in responding to local needs
This is why the debate over smaller administrative units should be treated primarily as a governance question rather than a political contest over boundaries. The objective should not be to weaken existing regions or create new divisions for electoral advantage. It should be to bring government closer to citizens. Smaller units could allow administrations to work with more manageable populations, shorter chains of command and clearer development priorities.
A government operating closer to communities is better positioned to understand what those communities actually require. A mountain district may need different infrastructure from an industrial corridor. Agricultural regions may require irrigation, storage and market access, while rapidly expanding towns may need transport systems, hospitals and municipal services. Large centralised administrations often apply broad policies across very different areas. Smaller jurisdictions would create greater room for planning based on local realities.
Education and healthcare could particularly benefit from such an approach. When administrative areas are smaller, departments can monitor schools, hospitals, staffing shortages and infrastructure requirements more closely. Decisions over teacher recruitment, medical personnel, equipment and public facilities can be made according to local demographic conditions instead of relying heavily on distant provincial headquarters.
Better supervision can also reduce the gap between policies announced on paper and services actually delivered
The same principle applies to policing and public safety. Law enforcement becomes more effective when senior administrative and police officials have a clearer understanding of local conditions and maintain closer coordination with district authorities and communities. Smaller jurisdictions can improve deployment, supervision and accountability while allowing security institutions to respond more quickly to emerging problems. Administrative proximity does not automatically guarantee better policing, but it can remove some of the structural barriers that make responsive governance difficult.
Economic development is another important consideration. Much of Pakistan’s public and private investment gravitates toward established metropolitan centres. Government departments, universities, hospitals, businesses and employment opportunities tend to cluster around provincial capitals and major cities. Creating new administrative centres could help distribute this economic activity more evenly. New capitals and regional hubs would require offices, housing, roads, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, transport and commercial services, creating employment and attracting investment.
More importantly, smaller units could design economic policies around their own strengths. One region may have significant agricultural potential, another may be suited to tourism, mining, logistics, industry or cross border trade. A smaller administration can focus more closely on developing these advantages, improving infrastructure and creating an environment in which local businesses can expand.
Regional economic planning becomes more practical when decision makers have a narrower and better understood jurisdiction
Greater accountability is equally important. In very large provinces, citizens often have limited interaction with senior officials and elected representatives. Political attention naturally gravitates toward areas with larger populations, stronger media presence or greater electoral significance. Smaller units could narrow this distance. Representatives would serve more manageable constituencies, while administrative performance would become easier for citizens, media and civil society to monitor. When officials are closer to the communities affected by their decisions, public scrutiny becomes harder to avoid.
Smaller administrative units could also reduce excessive migration toward major cities. People frequently move because employment, universities, hospitals and government services are concentrated elsewhere. Developing additional administrative and economic centres would create alternatives. If quality education, healthcare, jobs and public services become available closer to home, fewer citizens would feel compelled to relocate to already overcrowded metropolitan areas. This would ease pressure on housing, transport, sanitation and other urban infrastructure.
None of this means that simply creating new provinces or administrative regions will automatically produce good governance. Poorly planned units could merely reproduce existing bureaucratic weaknesses on a smaller scale. Any restructuring would therefore require clear criteria covering financial viability, population, geography, administrative capacity and local consent.
Revenue sharing, institutional responsibilities and relations between federal, provincial and local governments would also need careful constitutional and political consideration
The deeper reform must involve genuine decentralisation. New administrative boundaries would achieve little if authority remained concentrated at the top. Strong local governments, transparent budgeting, capable bureaucracies and accountable institutions must accompany any territorial restructuring. Citizens should ultimately experience reform through better roads, functioning schools, accessible hospitals, safer communities and faster public services, not merely through new buildings and titles.
Pakistan’s population and governance needs have changed substantially over time, while its administrative structure has remained comparatively rigid. A country of such scale and diversity requires institutions capable of responding to local conditions without forcing every problem through distant centres of authority. Smaller administrative units, carefully designed and adequately resourced, offer one credible way forward. The real issue is not how many lines appear on the political map. It is how effectively the state can reach the people who live within them.
