By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The question of whether Pakistan should carve out new provinces will reach the floor of parliament next month, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said Thursday, moving a proposal that has unsettled political leaders across the country from the realm of speculation into a formal legislative calendar.
Chaudhry, in a video statement, said no session of the National Assembly is scheduled this month, but that both the National Assembly and the Senate are expected to convene in October. The debate over restructuring the country’s administrative map, he said, will be taken up once lawmakers are back in session.
“Parliament can hold a debate on any topic — the National Assembly has representation from all four provinces, while the Senate has equal representation from each province,” Chaudhry said. “Every decision made here would be taken after consultations with all political parties.”
The minister described parliament as the only appropriate venue for such a consequential decision, and said he expects a “healthy discussion” once the matter is formally introduced. But he was careful to frame the debate in measured terms, cautioning political parties against approaching the issue emotionally and rejecting any characterization of it as a dispute over “inheriting fortunes.”
The proposal has its roots in remarks made in late July by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who told a gathering of corporate executives that Pakistan’s existing provincial structure had “collapsed” and called for the creation of new provinces or administrative units. Naqvi also urged a broader dialogue among political parties on overhauling the governance system, describing the need for administrative reform as urgent.
Those comments set off weeks of pointed reaction. The Pakistan Peoples Party referred the matter to its central decision-making body for deliberation. Sindh’s chief minister rejected the idea outright. A group of lawyers in Lahore argued that redrawing provincial boundaries in this manner would be unconstitutional. And Sindhi nationalist organizations went further still, calling for Naqvi’s resignation.
Against that backdrop, Chaudhry sought Thursday to draw a sharper distinction between the question of new provinces and a separate, more developed plan: overhauling how Islamabad itself is governed.
He said the government intends to introduce a formal governance framework for the capital before any decision is reached on new provinces elsewhere. Under that plan, Islamabad would retain its federal status but gain its first legislative assembly — a structural change Chaudhry was emphatic did not amount to provincial status.
“We are talking about improving its governance model by upholding its federal status,” he said, adding directly that Islamabad “could not become a province and was not going to be made” one.
According to Chaudhry, the underlying draft was produced by a five-member committee appointed by the prime minister and calls for a legislative body, along with the relevant municipal institutions, to operate under the supervision of a chief executive or mayor. He said the committee built the proposal by examining how other national capitals around the world are governed, rather than drafting it in isolation.
“It is a very simple model,” Chaudhry said. “We did not prepare this draft with any personal contrivance; it was prepared after studying existing governance models in various capitals around the world and their applicable plans.”
Chaudhry said he has already been in touch with other political parties about the draft and intends to formally share it with them for consultation, incorporating what he described as their positive recommendations. He added that the government also plans to consult Islamabad’s bar association, its chamber of commerce, and residents and intellectuals in the capital before finalizing the plan.
The idea has already drawn firm opposition in Sindh and constitutional objections in Punjab’s legal community, and October’s parliamentary sessions are likely to test whether the government can translate Chaudhry’s promise of consensus-building into an actual legislative path forward.
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