Pakistan, Aug. 4 -- Pakistan has outgrown its administrative architecture. A country of more than 241 million people continues to govern itself through just four provincial governments - a structure inherited from a very different Pakistan. Punjab alone now has a population of nearly 128 million, larger than most countries, yet it remains a single administrative unit. This is no longer merely a constitutional debate. It is an economic one.

For decades, the debate over new provinces has been trapped in the politics of language, ethnicity and identity, which has distracted from the question that actually matters: can Pakistan improve governance, attract investment, expand its tax base and deliver public services efficiently through only fo...