he governance debate in Pakistan begins with a complaint and then loses its constitutional bearings. Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal has thrown up choices involving 12 to 15 new provinces and 160 empowered districts.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has spoken of new administrative units if the public agrees. Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry has amplified the theme. Mian Amer Mahmood, a former Lahore nazim, has proposed converting the 33 administrative divisions into provinces. Distance and poor service delivery deserve attention; the numbers do not.

Province, federal territory, division and district are different institutions. Treating them the same obscures the problem: where should the authority reside, how should it be financed and who should answer for failure? A province is a constituent unit of the federation. It has an elected assembly, executive, residual legislative competence, representation in the Senate and seats at the Council of Common Interests, National Economic Council and National Finance Commission.

A district is a local-government jurisdiction constituted by a province under Article 140A of the constitution. A division is an administrative grouping that a provincial government may re-arrange. Upgrading a district or a division does not create the constitutional authority, political legitimacy or fiscal capacity of a province.

Imprecision also affects the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010 (Eighteenth Amendment). It did not “devolve 17 subjects.” It abolished the 47-entry Concurrent Legislative List, redistributed legislative competence and altered the federation’s institutional balance. Seventeen refers to federal ministries administratively devolved afterwards.

The distinction is not pedantry. Provinces received constitutional powers, not branch offices. If their capitals then centralised those powers, the remedy is enforceable local devolution; it does not follow that provincial status and district governments are substitutes.

Mohsin Naqvi’s emphasis on consent is welcome, but preference alone is not the constitutional route. Under Article 239(4), an amendment altering a province’s boundaries requires two-thirds support in each House of Parliament and approval by at least two-thirds of the total membership of the affected provincial assembly.

A referendum, federal committee or a rally cannot replace that consent. Durable demands for a South Punjab or Hazara province may justify provincehood. Each must be tested on history, territorial coherence, popular support and institutional viability—not bundled into a predetermined national number.

The FPCCI-backed Pakistan Economic Summit became the launch pad for the debate, yet enthusiasm is no substitute for constitutional design. Mian Amer Mahmood’s reported proposal claims that 33 division-based provinces could save Rs 350 billion annually because existing officials and buildings would be retained. No disclosed methodology accompanies that figure.

The claim cannot be tested against the cost of assemblies, cabinets, high courts, civil services, regulators, capitals, pensions, debt allocation, common assets or the rebalancing of the Senate, the CCI and the NFC. Administrative proximity may save transaction costs, but province-hood creates constitutional institutions that a divisional secretariat does not have.

Fiscal federalism is not a bookkeeping afterthought. It asks which level performs a function, which revenues it may raise, what transfers close the gap and how poorer territories provide comparable services. Differences in revenue capacity and service costs must be offset so residents can receive similar public services at comparable tax burdens.

A fiscally weak proposed province is not per se illegitimate; it needs a transparent equalisation formula. Multiplying units without such a formula can multiply inequality, dependence and bargaining at the centre.

Every province proposal needs a published transition ledger: the tax base, expenditure needs, civil-service strength, assets and liabilities, pension obligations, water and natural-resource rights, capital costs, representation changes and equalisation requirement.

An independent Federal Re-organisation Commission should compare three options for each territory—a new province, an empowered regional or metropolitan government and no boundary change—after open hearings and verifiable opinion research. This is the political census Pakistan needs before constitutional cartography.

Islamabad Capital Territory is the clearest test because no province is partitioned. Its municipal term ended on February 14, 2021; elections have repeatedly been postponed while union-council boundaries and the law were changed. The Capital Development Authority, the ICT administration and federal ministries divide responsibility.

That test is immediate. A draft submitted to the prime minister proposes a 27-member elected ICT Assembly—21 general seats and six reserved seats—an assembly-elected chief executive and 27 departments. Most CDA functions will move to it, but law and order and master planning will remain federal; union councils will be the sole local tier.

Geo has reported that an Act of Parliament will create the framework; another account has invoked the “required constitutional amendment.” The difference is fundamental. Article 142(d) gives the parliament exclusive lawmaking power outside a province. An Act may establish an elected statutory body and delegate administrative, fiscal and regulatory powers; it cannot entrench coordinate primary legislative authority or confer provincial incidents.

An ICT assembly exercising secure primary lawmaking power therefore requires constitutional amendment. Nor are ‘chief minister’ and ‘mayor’ interchangeable: one is a provincial constitutional office, the other municipal.

Mohsin Naqvi’s claim that the ICT receives no NFC share is a category error. Article 160 distributes a provincial share among provinces; ICT is federally financed. An NFC entitlement will follow only from province-hood, together with Senate parity and federal-forum membership. A statutory ICT government instead needs assigned revenues and predictable federal transfers.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee has backed a separate three-town-corporation bill. Transferring most CDA and service functions to elected control is welcome. The proposal’s weaknesses are decisive: federal control over the entire master plan preserves command over land and development; union councils alone leave no elected metropolitan or town tier; a territorial assembly cannot also substitute for city government.

Delhi is a useful comparator. Article 239AA provides an elected assembly and executive while reserving public order, police and land to the Union, above elected municipal government. Its disputes warn against divided command; its premise is sound: capital status need not disenfranchise residents.

Pakistan’s better model is a protected capital-region government controlling education, health, transport, housing, environment, utilities and territorial taxation. The federation should retain a mapped diplomatic and security enclave, strategic land and policing. Metropolitan planning should integrate Islamabad and Rawalpindi without erasing Punjab’s jurisdiction.

Metropolitan, town and union councils need fixed terms, elections before expiry, own revenues, formula transfers, open budgets and audited land records. Caretakers should neither tax nor redesign the system. This layered structure will demonstrate devolution, not reproduce federal control beneath a provincial label.

For the rest of Pakistan, the priority is a constitutional floor beneath Article 140A: fixed local-government terms; an enforceable election deadline; defined functional domains; regularly constituted Provincial Finance Commissions; predictable transfers; meaningful property, user-charge and fee powers; independent audit; and public performance data.

Metropolitan governments should integrate transport, planning and waste management across fragmented agencies. Rural districts need authority suited to dispersed settlements rather than a copied urban template. Federal development grants should follow transparent rules, not bypass provinces and councils through political patronage.

None of this prohibits new provinces. It separates genuine constituent-unit claims from the routine work of governing cities and districts. Mature demands may proceed through Article 239 with negotiated arrangements for boundaries, assets, water, representation and fiscal equalisation.

The system should first demonstrate two complete local-government electoral cycles and publish five years of comparable service and finance data. Evidence will then show whether a remaining failure arises from weak municipalities, provincial scale or deliberate centralisation.

Pakistan needs devolution before division and consent before cartography. Islamabad should become the federation’s demonstration of layered democracy, not another territory managed by the Centre. Provinces must finance and trust elected local governments.

New provinces should be created only after a specific public case survives constitutional, fiscal and political scrutiny. No elegant number—12, 15, 33, 36 or 160—can substitute for that structure. Good governance begins when functions, funds and accountability meet at the same level.

The writers are lawyers, adjunct faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences and members of the Advisory Board of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics