Administrative divisions had formed an integral tier of government from colonial times. The Governor's provinces of British India were subdivided into divisions, which were themselves subdivided into districts. At independence in 1947, the new nation of Pakistan comprised two wings – eastern and western, separated by India. Three of the provinces of Pakistan were subdivided into ten administrative divisions. The single province in the eastern wing, East Bengal, had four divisions – Chittagong, Dacca, Khulna and Rajshahi. The province of West Punjab had four divisions – Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi and Sargodha. The North-West Frontier Province (as it was then called) had two divisions – Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar. Most of the former Sind Province became Hyderabad Division. Most of the divisions were named after the divisional capitals, with some exceptions.
During the military rule of General Zia-ul-Haq, the Advisory Council of Islamize Ideology (headed by Justice Tanzilur Rahman) was tasked with finding ways to Islamic the country. One of its recommendations was that the existing four provinces should be dissolved and the twenty administrative divisions should become new provinces in a federal structure with greater devolution of power, but this proposal was never implemented.
In August 2000, local government reforms abolished the "Division" as an administrative tier and introduced a system of local government councils, with the first elections held in 2001. Following that there was radical restructuring of the local government system to implement "the principle of subsidiarity, whereby all functions that can be effectively performed at the local level are transferred to that level". This meant devolution of many functions, to districts and tehsils, which were previously handled at the provincial and divisional levels. At abolition, there were twenty-six divisions in Pakistan proper – five in Sindh, six in Balochistan, seven in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and eight in Punjab. Abolition did not affect the three divisions of Azad Kashmir, which form the second tier of government.
Restoration
In 2008, after the public elections, the new government decided to restore the divisions of all provinces.[3]
In Sindh after the lapse of the Local Governments Bodies term in 2010 the Divisional Commissioners system was to be restored.[4][5][6]
In July 2011, following excessive violence in the city of Karachi and after the political split between the ruling PPP and the majority party in Sindh, the MQM and after the resignation of the MQM Governor of Sindh, PPP and the Govt. of Sindh decided to restore the commissioner system in the province. As a consequence, the five divisions of Sindh have been restored namely, Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana with their respective districts. One new division was added in Sindh, the Shaheed Benazirabad division.[7]
The following tables show the current total 38 divisions of Pakistan with 31 divisions by province i.e., 8 divisions of Balochistan, 7 divisions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, 10 divisions of Punjab, with their respective populations as of the 2023 Census of Pakistan,[9] and the 6 divisions of Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad division.
Colours correspond to Divisions of the Province of Khyber PakhtunkhwaDivisions of the Province of PunjabSix Divisions of the Province of SindhEight Divisions of the Province of Balochistan
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