ISLAMABAD: The Inter Provincial Coordination (IPC) Division has sought the permission of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to prepare an initiative to create more provinces out of the existing four, to improve harmony and allow greater autonomy to them, Daily Times learnt on Sunday. Salim Saifullah Khan, federal minister for IPC, has sent a summary to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on the directives of the presidency to give serious consideration to this matter. The Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights had referred the case to the IPC Division for consideration. Sources told Daily Times that Saifullah Paracha, a former senator of the Pakistan People’s Party, had floated this idea by writing to President Musharraf for amendments to the Constitution so that more administrative units could be created in the country. Paracha said the creation of more provinces would further simplify the administrative control of federating units, said the sources. He had proposed that there should be at least five more provinces. Paracha had cited India and Bangladesh as examples where this practice had been successful. “East Pakistan - now Bangladesh - was one of the provinces of Pakistan before its secession in 1971, but later it was divided into many federating units.” naveed siddiqui
FINALLY the govt. is thinking about it. There r pro’s and con’s to dividing the provinces but my opinion is that the long term benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Benefits:
Easier administration
Complains of big brother Punjab might finally come to an end. Though it depends on the final dissection.
In line with govt.'s devolution agenda
Drawbacks:
Administration costs will increase manyfold. New Provincial assemblies etc etc.
Might be difficult to achieve consensus on issues. As it is we have trouble having agreement on NFC with only 4 units.
How so? The major issue that the smaller provinces have is that Punjab is consuming all the resources..but if we divide Punjab that lobby should be broken. I think it will lead to a better development of Southern Punjab as well becuz right now the resource distribution even within Punjab is skewed with Northern Punjab getting all the attention.
its a good idea. ideally you would make the provinces not based on ethnicity too, so that ethnicity based parties dont get that much momentum on the basis of unjust division of resources.
Leave them be. Punjab only gets resources as it has the most people. Besides, it is the breadbasket of the nation.
Err...Pakistan's bread basket is East Punjab now...Pakistan doesn't produce enough food to feed it's own population anymore...it imports, items such as grain and sugar, and soon tamatar and piaz...
All fruits of secular degeneration fo the past 8 years...
How so? The major issue that the smaller provinces have is that Punjab is consuming all the resources..but if we divide Punjab that lobby should be broken. I think it will lead to a better development of Southern Punjab as well becuz right now the resource distribution even within Punjab is skewed with Northern Punjab getting all the attention.
Do you seriously believe that Punjab will let go of the stranglehold it has on s. punjab [seraikistan]? Punjab over the course of history never included multan anyway. That area always used to be a separate jurisdiction.
This is simply a way to create fiefdoms. Remember you are dealing with a military regime which wishes to maintain control at all costs. Creating smaller provinces will allow "certain" people to gain stronger control over local government. This is in no way a good idea. It is rather very very stupid.
^ perhaps but it would localize the control the "certain" people have. "certain" people have power as it is, but because the granularity of power is larger they end up getting more bang for their buck.
Err...Pakistan's bread basket is East Punjab now...Pakistan doesn't produce enough food to feed it's own population anymore...it imports, items such as grain and sugar, and soon tamatar and piaz...
All fruits of secular degeneration fo the past 8 years...
religious piety and virtue grew plenty of tamatar and piaz during taleban rule in afghanistan.
nodding comes quite easy to this 'pm'. when is the last time he had an original idea of his own? his entire job is to keep nodding vigorously for anything musharaf and his generales come up with. fate of this nation!
^ perhaps but it would localize the control the "certain" people have. "certain" people have power as it is, but because the granularity of power is larger they end up getting more bang for their buck.
This is Pakistan. Not Iran or India where the government actually controls the land it is supposed to govern. Currently Feudal lords control fiefdoms without controlling the local governments or provincial governments. People vie for the power in provincial government. It provides a very Darwinian form of a checks and balances.
If you divide up the provinces into smaller contingents you will be doing another Radcliffe Award. People will rightly complain about economic discrepancies, racial border lines. In this day and age redrafting any sort of borders is a cause for unrest.
I know it cant be done overnight but we should start talking about it. Its easy to admin and manage resources of smaller units. There are few drawbacks but advantages over power the disadvantages
Naturally, that would have to be done by carving up Punjab,Sindh,Balochistan, etc
As if we don't have enough problems already, that idea is just asking for trouble, it is literally a bomb waiting to explode
You make your armageddon day claims without explaining why it would occur? Please do expand on why creating more provinces is a bomb waiting to explode?
This is Pakistan. Not Iran or India where the government actually controls the land it is supposed to govern. Currently Feudal lords control fiefdoms without controlling the local governments or provincial governments. People vie for the power in provincial government. It provides a very Darwinian form of a checks and balances.
Point is that with a smaller share of the power to vie for whoever achieves control will only achieve it over a smaller portion of the total. We have a feudal system in the rural areas, but atleast 30-40 percent of the country that is in cities wont get lorded over by a particular feudal because he can control the provincial govt.
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If you divide up the provinces into smaller contingents you will be doing another Radcliffe Award.
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People might argue that the current arrangement of provinces is unfair as it is.
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People will rightly complain about economic discrepancies, racial border lines.
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Which is what they do as it is. Once again I said that racial boundaries should not strictly be the criteria for determining the borders.
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In this day and age redrafting any sort of borders is a cause for unrest.
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And not redrafting the borders is a recipe for no unrest? People dont have bias against Punjab across Pakistan on the division of resources? Half of MQM's support comes from the rallying cry of ethnically/racially motivated division of resources in Pakistan.