Ali Mehar
Balochistan has stood at the crossroads between promise and neglect, a naturally well-endowed province bereft of participatory governance as a habit. The underdevelopment, political alienation, and recurring instability this has generated are not accidental but structural in origin. Rampant centralism has deprived citizens of their agency and sapped administrative efficiency, continuing to polarize state-society relations. Thus, the call by Senator Saeed Ahmed Hashmi for the establishment of empowered local governments across Balochistan is no less than a political statement-it’s a roadmap to lasting peace and inclusive development.
Basically, Hashmi argued that stability starts from the grassroots. For too long, Balochistan has been run and is being run from Quetta alone-a single locus of administration which is burdened with work that no provincial capital can ever bear efficaciously. From appointments in the education department in Turbat to decisions on infrastructure in Zhob, everything has to cross the bottleneck of the provincial secretariat. Predictably enough, everywhere the result was delayed execution and inefficiency translated into public frustration. It was this power imbalance that fostered dependency instead of empowerment, leaving 37 districts at the whims of fate and with little control over their fates.
Senator Hashmi has underlined Articles 32 and 140A of the Constitution of Pakistan in an effort to bring into effect something which should really be self-evident: genuine democracy cannot be conceived without properly functioning local governments. Article 32 calls for encouragement of local institutions, and Article 140A binds each province to transfer political, administrative, and financial powers to elected local representatives. These are not symbolic clauses but constitutional guarantees for taking governance to the doorsteps of the people. I, therefore, welcome Senator Hashmi’s efforts toward bringing this important issue to the national stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment