The government and state of Pakistan have long been Punjab centric, something that is widely believed by the smaller provinces of Pakistan. For those who do not agree with this proposition, here is a vivid example from 2017. Basing our analysis on the 2017 census, Punjab is only 53 percent of the population, Sindh is 22 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 15 percent, Balochistan and FATA form the remainder.
However, if we look at the 2017 example of Pakistan Railways, we see that 97 percent of its funds were spent solely on Punjab’s stations. According to a report by The Express Tribune, “The largest share of the funds – Rs324 million – was spent on the stations of Lahore division, where 16 railway stations were renovated, repaired or reconstructed. In Multan division another Rs89.261 million were spent on the maintenance of eight stations.” This was in comparison “only Rs8.547 million were spent on two stations of Sukkur division while a meagre amount of Rs4.264 million was spent on two – Budhapur and Dadu – stations of Karachi division.”
