Inter Provincial Coordination in Pakistan (original) (raw)

Inter Governmental Relations with Special reference to Local Government in Pakistan

2016

Multi tier system is considered the best device to manage governmental affairs in modern state systems. Local Government is at the tail of ladder and considered as vehicle of economic and political development in any society. Consequently, most of the states central as well as federal adopted this mechanism. The objective is to ensure political participation, equal distribution of resources, uplift far flung areas and to provide justice at the door step to the people of a nation state. A constructive, effective and balanced administrative, financial, political and social interaction between various tiers of the government is a pre-requisite for efficient and successful operation of adopted mechanism. Local government institution is efficiently operating in Pakistan since its emergence. However, some time it confronted with serious crisis. Policy makers of Pakistan reformed the system time to time to address the emerging issues. Intergovernmental relations remained under question in ...

Working Relationship between Central and Provincial Governments in Pakistan (1971-77)

2013

This paper explores the working relationship between the centre and the provinces during Z. A. Bhutto’s period from 1971 to 1977. This era was full of political turmoil at the domestic level. The issues like formation of central government and provincial governments, transfer and sharing of power, provincial autonomy, Balochistan insurgency, political assassinations, Urdu-Sindhi conflict, Ahmedia controversy, framing the constitution and the demand of national elections had disturbed the center-provinces relations. The confrontation between the PPP and NAP confirmed that the period was characterized by politics of power and personal interests. Balochistan experienced the worse kind of repression than any other province during Bhutto’s rule. A military campaign was started against them leading to worse clashes between the local forces and the military troops by federal government. The ban on NAP resulted in the formation of UDF which aimed at restoration of the democracy. Bhutto saw ...

Intergovernmental Coordination Mechanisms in India

2011

As the political and economic system of a nation changes over time, so do intergovernmental relations [IGR]. Since human interactions are at the core of IGR, certain institutional mechanisms are required to facilitate interactions among political incumbents. These are called “coordination mechanisms”. The aim of these mechanisms is to achieve ‘policy coordination’ by facilitating interactions among the executives of the two orders of government. This paper reviews and critically analyzes intergovernmental coordination mechanisms in India.

An Analysis of the Relationship Between Local and Provincial Governments in Pakistan

A government branched into national, provincial and local has its own functions and local self-government despite having enormous effects on the citizens has been paid very less tribute to! A local government needs to be strengthened out if democracy is to be kept alive. Decentralization has been opted by various countries for nation-building purposes and programs. In Pakistan, military government supported devolution process and it was pioneered by Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf. It resulted into making of a new scheme of local government and this article is a peep into the making, working and results/outcomes of this process and focuses on the relationship between provincial and local governments from 2001 to 2009. The devolution cannot function if local governments are not granted the power of making their own decisions which has been mostly done by provincial governments early on. This article attempts to throw ample light not only on the relationship of the said governments but also on what levels the manipulation occurred, how did it hinder the development process and troubled the spirit of devolution? Harmonization in all concerned areas is the need of the hour.

Improving Governance through Fiscal decentralization in Pakistan: The Role of Provincial Finance Commissions

The issue of effective governance has received much of the attention of researchers interested in the region. Of these, a dominant trend that emerged in many of the studies has been centered on federalism and decentralization (Ali, 2015; Cheema, Khwaja & Qadir, 2006). The central argument here has been that, a balance of power between the center and all federating units has the potential to solve many of the obstacles the country faces; from militancy to state coercion, ethnic conflict and economic progress. Some of the recommendations of the studies however, may be argued to be over-ambitious and impractical. Nonetheless, the 18 th amendment introduced in 2010 by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government has been, with some exceptions, widely celebrated as a step in the right direction by many researchers (Ali, 2015). Previously, the 1973 constitution had been amended multiple times by military rulers and its 'democratic' status was therefore rendered questionable. The changes thus introduced by the 7 th National Finance Commission (NFC) award, that was agreed upon in December 2009, and the 18 th Amendment, that was passed in April 2010, not only showed promise for improving the state of federalism in Pakistan but also of democratic atmosphere. The 18 th amendment, vast in its scope, carried strong implications for the provincial as well as the federal government by seeking to provide the provinces with a greater degree of autonomy. According to the constitution now, the four main provinces are Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Paktunkhwa (KPK) (while Gilgit Baltistan, FATA and Kashmir have been given a special status). The 7 th NFC award attempted at providing these four provinces with equitable distribution of resources. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, population had not been made the only factor considered for the allocation of resources; other factors such as poverty and backwardness and inverse population density were included to ensure an improved, more equitable distribution. Adeney (2012) notes, that the historical structure of federation in the region had intensified the conflict among groups and affected the legitimacy of the federation adversely. For this, the author argues, the exploitative and biased nature of the manner in which political and economic resources had been distributed were to blame. Since the amendment, many researchers such as Adeney (2012), have made the division of power and distribution of resources the center of attention to their studies. However, substantial work focusing on the distribution of the allocated budget within the provinces does not exist. Questions such as: How is this budget distributed? Who is responsible for it? To what extent are the Provincial Finance Commissions (PFC) functional? Are there differences between the PFCs, and if so, of what sort? Does the absence of a constitutionally binding framework for their existence have on effect on the functioning of PFCs? It is such questions that this study aims to find answers to.

Distribution of Power between the Centre and Provinces in Pakistan under the Constitution of 1973

Journal of Law & Social Studies, 2021

Centre-Province relationship and the distribution of power between centre and provinces is a complex and multifaceted sort of administrative and political debate for all around the world including Pakistan. Pakistan is based on federation where power has been divided between the central government and their provinces. Pakistan, which is partitioned into four regions, those are performing overwhelming participation in the organization and armed force. The other three units have demonstrated their discontent over the portion of forces between the government and areas and raised their voice for more independence and political shields. This paper will analyze the concept of a federation which considered appropriate for varied political societies to promote coordination and cooperation in the political, social, administrative, and economic sphere. So that it gives the fragile balance to conflicting demands between the centre and their provinces. This paper will discuss the fact, that the...

Financial Federalism in Pakistan: Implications for Centre-Province Relations

This paper explores the development in financial federalism of Pakistan through execution of NFC Awards. Improvement and mutual consensus in fiscal matters are not only vital for the overall economic wellbeing of a federation but also for its integration. An overview of federal governments in the world provided economically stronger center with comparatively less resourceful units.Pakistan like other federations of the world has gone through many ups and downs but still matters are to be settled. Wide economic differences in provinces have made collection and sharing of revenue complicated. Efforts in the NFC Awards are not revolutionary butA slow change to remove vertical and horizontal imbalances has been observed. Eighteenth amendment has helped provinces to obtain the revenue from local sources as well for devisable pool.Delay in next NFC Award points out that Fiscal federalism still needs interprovince coordination and more efforts for exploration of local resources. A national political debate along with economic realities are needed to regulate the process of NFC Awards. Pakistan can consider Canadian fiscal federalism to improve some issues highlighted in NFC debates. Execution of a just and acceptable Award will improve fiscal federalism as well as political federalism of Pakistan.

INTRA-NATIONAL SECURITY: A CASE STUDY OF NEW PROVINCES IN PAKISTAN MOONIS AHMAR

The debate and discourse to change the provincial map of Pakistan by creating new provinces is not a new phenomenon and is considered as a major challenge to intra-national security and to the centripetal forces who still want Pakistan to be a unitary instead of a federal state. What is intra-national security and how the issue of creating new provinces can have a major impact on the dynamics of national security at different levels? As compared to national security which deals with the whole country, intra-national security relates to contradictions and variations in the security dynamics and paradigms in different parts of the country. Pakistan as a multi-ethnic, multilingual , multi-cultural and multi-religious state can effectively deal with issues of security if intra-national security is accepted as a reality and beyond the scope of national security. Matters and issues relating to different regions of Pakistan located in its provinces can at best be understood in terms of intra-national security. If the approach of major power stakeholders in Pakistan is positive and they wish to peacefully address issues which cause friction, instability, chaos, disorder and violence in different provinces because of social, economic and political injustices, in that case they must seriously consider proposal to upgrade existing divisions of Pakistan into provinces. For that matter, proper brainstorming by the concerned stakeholders including civil society groups needs to be done so that consensus is reached on the methodology to create new provinces in Pakistan.