Pakistan, an administrative nightmare?

[my2cents]

We in India had to fight for our states. In 1950 we had only 22 states and now I believe we have 29 states with the new addition of Telangana. We have demand from states like Uttar Pradesh for further subdivision.

Is there any demand from people for smaller provinces in Pakistan?

Here is a link which applies to India but should apply for Pakistan.

Division of States: Good or Bad? -TargetGD/PI -Group Discussions, Personal Interviews

 

[WishLivePak]

We love giving examples on how so and so have so and so many provinces in the west.

What we forgot that in west there is no such thing as feudalism, a lot of independence, little corruption and so and so. Not just that, people there don't like living like slaves as is the case in Pakistan, where farmers don't mind being slaves (though protesting nonetheless).

Thus, we've to follow the formula that works with Pakistan. We cannot copy and paste another society's system over.

 

[Archie]

having 30 or even 50 Administrative units may not be helpful

best Idea is having something Similar to United Kingdoms Governance style
where you have over 600 councils spread across 4 countries

each council maintains its law enforcement and healthcare system as well as primary education and Housing system

in Pakistan you could replace Countries with 4 Provinces
with Karachi playing the role of London

 

[third eye]

As things stand, if you live in Bahawalpur, Nawabshah, Gwadar and in some far flung area of KPK and you happen to have a high court case or any major administrative problem you'd need to travel to Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Islamabad or Peshawar.

Do the High Courts have benches in other cities within the same state ?

 

[livingdead]

having 30 or even 50 Administrative units may not be helpful

best Idea is having something Similar to United Kingdoms Governance style
where you have over 600 councils spread across 4 countries

each council maintains its law enforcement and healthcare system as well as primary education and Housing system

in Pakistan you could replace Countries with 4 Provinces
with Karachi playing the role of London

UK's system is more broken than pakistan. Scots are our balochis ... ha ha.

 

[HariPrasad]

In my opinion, Pakistan needs at least 20-30 provinces or administrative units.

This will proved to be highly counterproductive and particularly costly because you will require 30 Administrative units in place of 4 and each one will require saperate resource.

 

[VCheng]

Power sharing is something Pakistanis are not very good at.

It is not the number of administrative units that make Pakistan a nightmare, it is the quality and mindset of the people doing the said administrating. Changing the number means nothing.

 

[Husnainshah]

While Pakistan is indeed an administrative nightmare but solving administrative issues shouldn't be the priority.
Pakistan, more importantly is a Legal Nightmare followed by a Religious and Political Nightmare.

All the good administration when go down the drain when you don't have the practical legal approach to the social issues.
Similarly, With all the good administration and legal apparatus, you can't do much if a playboy preaches his supporters to not pay taxes, beat the hell out of civil servants and attack government properties.
Who'd invest Billions when Pakistan's Financial hub would shut down on a phone call?

Most dangerous, however, is the Religious Nightmare. I know I wouldn't invest in a country where nightlife is pretty much Non-existent, where the only form of entertainment is news channels and political talk shows to be precise. Where I'd lose my vehicle in arson and my factory vandalized because someone in Europe draws a cartoon.

 

[Hyde]

please do counter my points so we can have a meaningful debate on these points. I am basically opposing this while it seems a majority of the seniors will favour it.

First of all, my sincere apologise for late reply, I was very busy since last 2 days

I do understand where you are coming from and partially agree with your reservations but I think the major difference of opinion is the fear of consequences you have and the optimism myself and @Horus shares.

how many people will oppose Zardari, how many will oppose MQM in Karachi, how will any change come in Southern Punjab, how kind will the Chaudry be when he owns half of a district

Look, I wouldn't want to talk about the role of feudal lord or seasoned politicians in local politics as I firmly believe the people in Pakistan are smarter than we think and a noob party called Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf proved in General Elections 2013 by grabbing 7,700,000 votes out of nowhere. That was a massive shift of change in Pakistan and reaffirming the fact that hard work and dedication does pay off one day. That change was brought at national level and I believe it is easier to bring such change at provincial level once the smaller administrative units are created. One big problem for Pakistan is, we have not allowed a single system to function properly that has not allowed to filter out the faults from the system. I am not supporting PTI but pointing out the fact that change can be brought in the feudal system and I am no longer pessimist about it. So this argument of power the power coming over to one family in smaller administrative is temporary and will no longer be reality if we do not support it.

I think you are over optimistic but the fact is if Lahore was a province along with surrounding villages, we would see development in a very superficial way with no way of changing the status quo or the death grip that they would have with a stronger grip on the police, the courts, and the policies of spending.

It is your observation and I respect your opinion. But if you ask me if Lahore was a province, it would only be getting its fair share of budget and will plan to use that money in the best interest of local people. Right now, Lahore gets highest share from the budget of Punjab due to the money being distributed through a single channel/Lahore-centred government. The good thing about more provinces is the environment of competition between the smaller administrative units which may lead to getting rid of bad politicians based on their performances and quick replacement of better politicians. If we have 1 bad CM, whole Punjab suffers, if we have 8-10 CM's only one area might be suffering

For real change we need to change the provision of funds like I mentioned to be mandatory rather then concentrate power to certain families in the regions they belong to. This will strengthen family politics further and dissent will not be met with anything but violence.

Agree but the solution to your problem lies in creation of smaller administrative units. You will never be able to form such a strategy unless you make administrative changes. Why not make the whole province if you go that way?

The federation is going to be made up of ruling families who will try and form coalition governments which will be fragile and thus unable to agree on any real issue. The PML-Q would resurface with some provinces, PTI and PPP would get a larger piece of the pie, with MQM and ANP even having chances of being provincial parties. Divide and conquer is more like what this will do, more infighting and less work.

Is it going to be different to what already have? Whatever your observations are, we are already witnessing this menace. So why not try something new? If the whole province is strangled in the hands of few politicians why not have better concentration of representatives from the people to have higher chance of good people coming on top? if Lahore is strangled by bad politician, Multan doesn't have to bear the cost of Lahore's poor decision.

Any system in the world will fail when those enforcing it are not sincere to it.

indeed, I think I do agree that the biggest issue is not the creation of provinces but implementation. We do have very good examples of nations which thrived after the creation of new administrative units but there are also countries like Afghanistan, smaller than the size of Pakistan with 34 provinces and having shown no sign of real change for the people.

You need to change the set up to be less corrupt and then even if you reduce the provinces it would work out. Local bodies need to be given greater power

Reducing the provinces has only led to division of Pakistan in 1971. When the voice of poor people is not being heard by the ruling party living 500 km away from your home town, it creates an environment of desperation and leads to unfortunate circumstances. It is better to have your representatives from everywhere so that your local people can catch you for wrong doings and replace you if need be.

then how can giving power to more of the same change anything. .

The problem is, Punjab is bigger than the combined population of Holland, Beligum, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Norway. Imagine the hundreds of administrative units created in all these countries compared to just 1 in Punjab. If we just divide Punjab with population concentration of 10 million per province, Each of it's 9 provinces will be twice as big as Ireland in terms of population and bigger than many European countries by land.

Imagine just 1 chief minister with a small cabinet is handling the affairs of such a large province. The problem is, even if the CM is very loyal person it is very impracticable to cater the need of a citizen living 500 km away from Lahore. I think every province in Pakistan should be no larger than 80-100 kilometres and the population no bigger than 10 million.

Hypothetically speaking, if divisions of Punjab were upgraded to Provincial level it would geographically be:

Bahawalpur - Bigger than Netherlands, Denmark or Switzerland
DG Khan - Bigger than Belgium
Sargodha - Slightly smaller than Belgium
Rawalpindi - Bigger than Slovenia
Multan - Half the size of Switzerland
Faisalabad - Twice the size of Cyprus
Gujranwala - Twice the size of Cyprus
Lahore - Twice the size of Cyprus
Sahiwal - Bigger than Cyprus

The population of each province will be bigger than Scandinavian countries or Switzerland. So it is not a bad idea to devolve some powers from the one-man show. I have not been able to talk about the benefits of more provinces as the post has become very long, will write about it later

 

[Gufi]

Look, I wouldn't want to talk about the role of feudal lord or seasoned politicians in local politics as I firmly believe the people in Pakistan are smarter than we think and a noob party called Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf proved in General Elections 2013 by grabbing 7,700,000 votes out of nowhere. That was a massive shift of change in Pakistan and reaffirming the fact that hard work and dedication does pay off one day. That change was brought at national level and I believe it is easier to bring such change at provincial level once the smaller administrative units are created. One big problem for Pakistan is, we have not allowed a single system to function properly that has not allowed to filter out the faults from the system. I am not supporting PTI but pointing out the fact that change can be brought in the feudal system and I am no longer pessimist about it.

Actually right now I do support most programs by the PTI but you do not understand the way people are made to vote in rural areas in the backward areas of Pakistan. Giving them more power means land reforms, not more provinces. The Province owned by Zardari or a Chaudry will just take away any little development that is happening in these areas. And I have logic on my side, as President of a country if Zardari did not provide basic human needs to his people, it means he does not want to. And now imagine chief minister Zardari and chief minister Chaudry one, two and three. Add to that chief minister Wadara, and chief minister peer XYZ. The problem in your approach is not understanding the lack of free will afforded to people in certain areas. Any system to change, needs to give power to the people through local bodies, so Chaudry one power's decrease while he still has no extra powers as chief minister of his little domain. You need to strip power from the lords of the land, and to do that you need to make local bodies stronger, reduce powers of MPA's and you can not do that by increasing provinces where even the courts will be answerable to Chief Minister Altaf's puppet. Once you can fix the system we have, then by all means slowly make changes to the provinces while maintaining a standard. But expecting that making more provinces will fix the problem is going to lead to 30 more mercedes and protocols of Chief ministers.

gree but the solution to your problem lies in creation of smaller administrative units. You will never be able to form such a strategy unless you make administrative changes. Why not make the whole province if you go that way?

Because under a broken system, more provinces means more power to the corrupt, not the opposite. When you have more police forces, but a corrupt system, there will be more places like Raiwand where thousands stand guard.

indeed, I think I do agree that the biggest issue is not the creation of provinces but implementation. We do have very good examples of nations which thrived after the creation of new administrative units but there are also countries like Afghanistan, smaller than the size of Pakistan with 34 provinces and having shown no sign of real change for the people.

That is why I say fix the system, that is the only solution that can work. Any other hopeful idealistic vision will remain that. Make shift courts with untrained judges or worse, judges who are put into place by local Chaudry and bestowed to him will be the norm.

Reducing the provinces has only led to division of Pakistan in 1971. When the voice of poor people is not being heard by the ruling party living 500 miles away from your home town, it creates an environment of desperation and leads to unfortunate circumstances. It is better to have your representatives from everywhere so that your local people can catch you for wrong doings and replace you if need be.

Long debate, but there were much stronger forces at play here then just our own messed up policies. Which is why I said laws maintaining maximum quotas per person spending should be declared and every city must be given money under this system. for example Lahore has 1 hospital bed for 1000 patients and Multan has 1 for 3000, there would be preferential funding to make Multan reach the same level as Lahore before more hospitals are built in Lahore. This would relieve us of the additional burden of extra ministers and make sure funding would be distributed fairly. Also the high court should have more judges, and they should be branches in major cities which have the same authority. This way 5 courts in Punjab would have the power that one has now. And only with a fixed system will it be considered possible for any of the 5 courts to have honest and capable judges.

The problem is, Punjab is bigger than the combined population of Holland, Beligum, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Norway. Imagine the hundreds of administrative units created in all these countries compared to just 1 in Punjab. If we just divide Punjab with population concentration of 10 million per province, Each of it's 9 provinces will be twice as big as Ireland in terms of population and bigger than many European countries by land.

Again idealistic sir, have you not heard of Sarikistan being the next province, divided again by ethnic lines. Ground realities are very different in every country compared to Pakistan in terms of honest systems in place, voter maturity and independence.

Imagine just 1 chief minister with a small cabinet is handling the affairs of such a large province. The problem is, even if the CM is very loyal person it is very impracticable to cater the need of a citizen living 500 miles away from Lahore. I think every province in Pakistan should be no larger than 80-100 kilometres and the population no bigger than 10 million.

Again, local governance is the answer. Again I speak with facts on my side, we had a mayor in Karachi who worked to build Karachi under the same system under a Sindh Government. he changed Karachi and was responsible for many of the development projects in the city. Now imagine an honest mayor of Multan working for the people, who is properly funded. And in an honest system the number of provinces will not matter because real power will be given to the people who will elected their own local bodies who will elect a mayor.

The population of each province will be bigger than Scandinavian countries or Switzerland. So it is not a bad idea to devolve some powers from the one-man show. I have not been able to talk about the benefits of more provinces as the post has become very long, will write about it later

I am all for the reduction of power for chief ministers,but I believe that can only be brought about by improved system with powers being with the local bodies. Only then will real problems be solved according to this area.
I apologize for any part of this which may cause offence.

Bahawalpur - Bigger than Netherlands, Denmark or Switzerland
DG Khan - Bigger than Belgium
Sargodha - Slightly smaller than Belgium
Rawalpindi - Bigger than Slovenia
Multan - Half the size of Switzerland
Faisalabad - Twice the size of Cyprus
Gujranwala - Twice the size of Cyprus
Lahore - Twice the size of Cyprus
Sahiwal - Bigger than Cyprus

You have just added 8 Chief ministers, with their cabinets, with their own protocols and privelages. My route reduces the power of the one chief minister to legislation, reduces the number of ministers in every province, while development would be handled by the mayors who will not have minister status and will not strut around being a well in simple words, ars or ghunda.
Fix the system and give the power to mayors and local bodies. Best solution in my opinion
@Horus take time out to read also

ps @Aether no need to apologize, thank you for sharing your views and hopefully will get your opinion on what I said

 

[Hyperion]

Yes they do..... even the Supreme court does in rest of country........... mind you that not all have to be 'constitutional' courts, it's the sweet will of the Chief Justice, either of HC or SCoP.

Do the High Courts have benches in other cities within the same state ?

 

[Norwegian]

Thus, we've to follow the formula that works with Pakistan. We cannot copy and paste another society's system over.

So that's why West-imported democratic system keep failing to deliver in Pakistan year after year?
Thank Goodness you said something right after all

Most dangerous, however, is the Religious Nightmare. I know I wouldn't invest in a country where nightlife is pretty much Non-existent, where the only form of entertainment is news channels and political talk shows to be precise. Where I'd lose my vehicle in arson and my factory vandalized because someone in Europe draws a cartoon.

Well said. Please some PDF TTA give a good rating

 

[third eye]

Yes they do..... even the Supreme court does in rest of country........... mind you that not all have to be 'constitutional' courts, it's the sweet will of the Chief Justice, either of HC or SCoP.

Not understood

The SC has benches elsewhere ?

How can they not be constitutional courts ?

 

[Hyperion]

Well, in other province HQ's, supreme court does have constitutional benches, however, it can also have benches as per wish of the CJ (SCoP) if he wishes so in other cities, and later they can be turned into constitutional benches....

I'll give one example here, for example there is a high court in Bannu, although not a constitutional bench of HC, it was constituted as per directives of the CJ KPK...........

So yes, it is the prerogative of the CJ to constitute benches wherever and whenever he/she wishes, and later, as per law, they can be turned into constitutional benches or they can be dissolved by the parliament.

Not understood

The SC has benches elsewhere ?

How can they not be constitutional courts ?

 

[Hyde]

Actually right now I do support most programs by the PTI but you do not understand the way people are made to vote in rural areas in the backward areas of Pakistan. Giving them more power means land reforms, not more provinces. The Province owned by Zardari or a Chaudry will just take away any little development that is happening in these areas. And I have logic on my side, as President of a country if Zardari did not provide basic human needs to his people, it means he does not want to. And now imagine chief minister Zardari and chief minister Chaudry one, two and three. Add to that chief minister Wadara, and chief minister peer XYZ. The problem in your approach is not understanding the lack of free will afforded to people in certain areas. Any system to change, needs to give power to the people through local bodies, so Chaudry one power's decrease while he still has no extra powers as chief minister of his little domain. You need to strip power from the lords of the land, and to do that you need to make local bodies stronger, reduce powers of MPA's and you can not do that by increasing provinces where even the courts will be answerable to Chief Minister Altaf's puppet. Once you can fix the system we have, then by all means slowly make changes to the provinces while maintaining a standard. But expecting that making more provinces will fix the problem is going to lead to 30 more mercedes and protocols of Chief ministers.

I am not disagreeing with you and acknowledge that the whole system is broken. This is under the present circumstances so don't you think we need to change the system to discourage status quo?

Because under a broken system, more provinces means more power to the corrupt, not the opposite. When you have more police forces, but a corrupt system, there will be more places like Raiwand where thousands stand guard.

There are both advantages and disadvantages of more administrative units but I foresee advantages prevailing over disadvantages in the long run. Yes may be more corruption by the politicians will come to the fore but I think it will also be easier to identify corruption due to limited resources each area will be getting. Instead of trying to bring the change in whole province at once, we will be able to share the responsibility to various regions and if you assume there will be corruption in this set up then what have we got out of current set up? The biggest issue with having larger province is the unfair distribution of resources. It is not wrong to speculate that 60% of total Punjab's budget is spent on 10% of total land area and population of Punjab (you can refer to the book for exact allocation).

We have seen the performance of one province (West Pakistan), we have also seen the performance of 4 provinces, now is the time to experiment with more provinces if nothing else worked so far.

That is why I say fix the system, that is the only solution that can work. Any other hopeful idealistic vision will remain that. Make shift courts with untrained judges or worse, judges who are put into place by local Chaudry and bestowed to him will be the norm.

Fixing the system is easier if you distribute your problem in bits and pieces. If we create 5 provinces from existing Punjab and name it as "South Punjab, West Punjab, North Punjab, East Punjab and Central Punjab". Each province is still likely to be bigger than many countries such as Switzerland. The perception that one chaudhry will be able to control 20 million population is wrong. I don't believe such initiative would strengthen family politics even more. The creation of more provinces only mean distribution and devolution of power. It does not mean we are selling land to some Chaudhry's or Waderas.

Also look at the advantages of such an initiative. You are going to have 5 High Courts as @Horus would point out. Get 5x more High court judges and get speedy justice by up to 5 times. It also saves a lot of money of common people to travel to bigger cities. I am not convinced that some Chaudhry would get additional levy of appointing judges of his choice, if it happens under current set up it may happen again, but the chances of such an appointment will be greatly reduced due to better chance of tracking down "sifarshis".

It is not only about justice, the dedicated police as you rightly pointed out is likely to be competing with each other, each province is likely to cater the needs of local population and building schools, universities, hospitals, industrial parks and infrastructure within their designated region would encourage a healthy competition between provinces. It would only benefit Pakistan in the long run. Like I said earlier, Multan or Bahawalpur will not have to suffer for the poor decision of Lahore, Gujranwala, Silakot or Faisalabad. Again we have no rights to snatch the share of Multan or Bahawalpur to pump the economic activity of Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad at faster pace. You never know if same amount had been invested in Multan it would have progress faster than Lahore or Faisalabad. So fair chance to prove themselves must be given to them and it is only possible through smaller provinces.

After the creation of smaller provinces, each region can decide their own leadership and test them out rather than sticking with the leaders residing 500 kilometres away from you and hardly paying attention to your needs.

Long debate, but there were much stronger forces at play here then just our own messed up policies. Which is why I said laws maintaining maximum quotas per person spending should be declared and every city must be given money under this system. for example Lahore has 1 hospital bed for 1000 patients and Multan has 1 for 3000, there would be preferential funding to make Multan reach the same level as Lahore before more hospitals are built in Lahore. This would relieve us of the additional burden of extra ministers and make sure funding would be distributed fairly. Also the high court should have more judges, and they should be branches in major cities which have the same authority. This way 5 courts in Punjab would have the power that one has now. And only with a fixed system will it be considered possible for any of the 5 courts to have honest and capable judges.

The idea is good and practical within the domain of each province but if you apply it as a whole in Pakistan, you will have problems with less populated region. The population density in Punjab is very high compared to Balochistan as you see the total population of Balochistan can be compared to one city of Punjab. So if you go for 1 hospital per 1000 people, either you relocate all the people of Balochistan to Quetta or make alternative solution to your idea as most regions may never qualify for hospitals, universities or industrial zones.

Again idealistic sir, have you not heard of Sarikistan being the next province, divided again by ethnic lines. Ground realities are very different in every country compared to Pakistan in terms of honest systems in place, voter maturity and independence.

I see nothing wrong in creation of administrative units including Saraikistan. The creation of new units doesn't have to be based on one particular subject of Administration, Ethnicity or Language. We must have open ear to listen to the demand of locals and follow how they deem is best for them. I am not asking to devolve the whole system in one day. It's a continuous process to craft out smaller administrative units one by one. Following India or Nigeria model is the key here. Nigeria has very similar population and land area to us and not long ago they only had 3 states, now they have 36.

Again, local governance is the answer. Again I speak with facts on my side, we had a mayor in Karachi who worked to build Karachi under the same system under a Sindh Government. he changed Karachi and was responsible for many of the development projects in the city. Now imagine an honest mayor of Multan working for the people, who is properly funded. And in an honest system the number of provinces will not matter because real power will be given to the people who will elected their own local bodies who will elect a mayor.

I believe in multi-tier system like we have in UK. There should be regions of 80-10km maximum, call it Province, State, County, Region, Zone whatever you would like. Then there will ideally be 100s of districts in each region followed by thousands of councils. We can have a mayor for each district. The efforts made by KPK government in local body election is the right way to go, we just need to implement similar formula at provincial level too..

You have just added 8 Chief ministers, with their cabinets, with their own protocols and privelages. My route reduces the power of the one chief minister to legislation, reduces the number of ministers in every province, while development would be handled by the mayors who will not have minister status and will not strut around being a well in simple words, ars or ghunda.

May be yes but I am looking the benefits it provides to the people at the same time. Every single need will be fulfilled locally and you wouldn't have to go far to get your basic problems sorted out.

Fix the system and give the power to mayors and local bodies. Best solution in my opinion

The Mayor led council government can function regardless of the total size of province so there is no disagreement on this solution.