ABSTRACT

This study examined the fragmented governance of Pakistan’s federal transport sector which results in inefficiencies, policy misalignment, and poor coordination between the separate ministries responsible for road, rail, maritime, and aviation transport. The study involved the qualitative exploratory case research, where the ‘in-depth interviews’, with the key respondents, were conducted including the officers of federal ministries, policymakers, and academic scholars in a semi-structured form alongside an analysis of national transport related policies, and related documents. Some important themes were identified by the study like institutional fragmentation, inter-ministerial coordination, policy overlap, and historical evolution of transport ministries.

The results showed that the breaking up of the ‘Ministry of Communications’ resulted in competing priorities, and fragmentation. The subsequent transport ministries are not well coordinated, as there is no central coordinating body, resulting in occasional coordination, redundant undertakings, especially in the freight, and infrastructure development. Although, there are policies, such as the ‘National Transport Policy of Pakistan (2018)’, whose implementation is hampered by the lack of permanent coordination mechanisms among the ministries, leading to a relatively reactive, as opposed to proactive, alignment across transport modes, in terms of policy.

The study  findings  noted  that  the recent  tensions could  have been  overcome by establishing a ‘Ministry of Transport’, or a permanent ‘central coordinating agency’, by merging transport ministries to coordinate policy, and developing a ‘National Transport Master Plan’ to harmonize transport strategies in the country, and to enhance the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of the overall governance.