Iqbal says 18th amed failed to deliver

Planning Minister Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday clarified his remarks regarding new provinces, saying most of Pakistan's social and human resource indicators had continuously declined during the last 15 years that needed significant improvement for achieving the national development goals.

He said the main reason for the country's poor performance in the social sector was the lack of transfer of powers and resources to the grassroots level after the 18th Amendment and the centralization of powers at the provincial level.

He said, the country had two options. The first option was to establish empowered local governments in 160 districts, which would be directly provided resources from the Provincial Finance Commission, or to establish 12 or 15 new provinces through consensus, as the current administrative structure had become overloaded with a population of 260 million.