AS Karachi’s Gul Plaza turned to ashes, the initial shock following the blaze was soon replaced with concerns about the government’s breakdown. The tragedy unfolding at Gul Plaza was symptomatic of a larger failure, manifested by the public’s growing disenchantment with the government. With a population of over 20 million, deep-water ports, an industrious business community, and a literacy rate of over 70 per cent, Karachi should have been the gateway to Pakistan. The capital’s shift to Islamabad in the 1960s and the scourge of ethnic and sectarian strife since the 1980s, however, made it synonymous with crime and a crumbling infrastructure.

While the 2000s saw Karachi welcome an array of infrastructural projects after the devolution of authority under the 2001 local government law, its repeal in 2010 consolidated powers in the provincial government once again. In this concentration of powers in the provincial government and the concomitant erosion of LGs also lies Karachi’s unique administrative and political quagmire.

With Karachi’s provincial seats accounting for 47 of the 130 seats in the provincial assembly, a party may form a government in Sindh without winning a single seat in Karachi. This phenomenon may be exemplified by the PPP’s continued electoral dominance in Sindh, even as it has failed to muster support outside its traditional constituencies in Karachi. Inevitably, concerns about Karachi’s population being underreported in recent censuses and gerrymandering across districts engenders allegations about the provincial government’s tacit role in obviating expression of the city’s political will.

Unsurprisingly, the absence of an empowered LG and the lack of a representative government at the provincial level has propelled a raging debate about the need for a constitutional amendment which creates more administrative units across the country, including particularly in Sindh. The alacrity with which parliament passed the 26th and 27th Amendments has also emboldened such demands. Such demands, however, are not merely a response to a political party’s performance but emanate from dissatisfaction with a system which inhibits a city’s political will and, in turn, its ability to hold those in power accountable.

A solution to Karachi’s crisis may lie in the idea of ‘metropolitan cities’.

Proposals to create more provinces, however, raise concerns about fiscal space given the burden that additional provincial assemblies, separate high courts, and overhauling the entire bureaucratic apparatus would pose. Also, the demand for a separate province in Sindh threatens to raise ethnic tensions across the province. What may then be a way out for Karachi’s political and administrative quagmire?

One solution could be a constitutional amendment which entrenches ‘metropolitan cities’ in the same manner that the Constitution recognises the federation and the provinces. Metropolitan cities may be headed by a directly elected mayor who oversees not only municipal functions but also education, healthcare, and law and order. An elected city council may be entrusted with legislative functions in respect of issues over which the mayor has executive authority, while parliament may legislate on all other issues. More importantly, the tenure and elections of the metropolitan governments ought to be constitutionally protected, with the Election Commission of Pakistan being entrusted to ensure regular and periodic elections like the national and provincial assemblies.

With Karachi being declared a ‘metropolitan city’, its existing districts may function as metropolitan towns with their own district mayors who perform functions like waste collection and the maintenance of local roads. To ensure accountability and uniformity of policy, the district mayors may operate under the direction and overarching control of the metropolitan mayor. Further, given provincial governments’ recalcitrance to transparently dispense funds received through the National Finance Commission, the Commission may determine not only the distribution of funds between the federation and provinces but also the provision of funds to the metropolitan governments.

A project initiated by the government a few years ago promised to transform Sharea Faisal and the area surrounding the airport to ensure that those visiting the city were not welcomed by broken roads and dilapidated buildings. While the fate of that project remains uncertain, the broken roads outside the airport are usually the second thing visitors notice about Karachi. The first being the broken dreams and aspirations of its people.

Will parliament ameliorate Karachi’s grievances with the same alacrity with which it has enacted recent amendments to the Constitution? The city and its people stand on the edge of the precipice.

The writer is a lawyer.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2026