ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said Pakistan could have as many as 12 provinces, provided they are created on administrative grounds and not along linguistic, ethnic or political lines.
“If there is a proposal for 12 provinces, then make it 12, but they should not be created on the basis of language, ethnicity or political interests,” he said in a television interview on Sunday. A growing population needed smaller units, he said, and decisions should not stay confined to capitals such as Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar.
Power and money: Asif said funds transferred by the federal government remained at the discretion of provincial governments, even though they were meant for local institutions, which still depended on the provinces for money and authority. “Public representatives must remember that their authority was entrusted to them by the people,” he said.
He recalled that West Pakistan’s provinces were merged under the One Unit scheme, a decision later reversed, and pointed to Afghanistan, where he said the number of provinces had grown from about eight or 10 to more than 30.
MQM-P renews its demand: the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, a federal coalition partner, renewed its call for new administrative units in Sindh on the same day. Party chief and federal minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told a meeting at the party’s Bahadurabad headquarters in Karachi that ending the deprivation of urban Sindh, creating new administrative units and winning the coming local government elections were its top priorities. The party has announced a march towards Karachi’s Sharea Faisal on November 29.
Where the idea stands: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi set off the debate on July 31 when he said the existing system had failed and needed a reset, and Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has proposed 12 to 15 provinces. Media reports have spoken of a possible 28th Constitutional Amendment and a nationwide referendum, with Punjab split into four provinces, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan into three each, and Sindh into two. The government has not published any such plan.
The Pakistan Peoples Party, which governs Sindh, opposes it. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution on September 4 rejecting any attempt to divide the province or create new administrative units, and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said there would be “no compromise on Sindh’s geographical unity”. Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said last month that the assembly had put a “full stop” to the matter.
