TRAVEL from Lahore to Peshawar and you feel the state change its attitude. In Punjab, despite flaws, the state tries to deliver. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the state makes you wait. You wait for your licence, for your hospital card to work, for flour prices to fall, for your daughter’s school to reopen, for the road to reopen after a clash. While citizens wait, the government in Peshawar stays busy elsewhere. Take a driving licence. In Punjab, it has become simple. Free medical fitness certificates are now issued inside government hospitals, with thirteen counters opened in Lahore in the first phase. In KP, more than 117,000 printed cards remained pending for months. People who passed the test and paid the fee drove with a paper slip and paid challans to the same police that had not printed their cards. In January 2026, the Chief Minister had to issue an emergency division-wise schedule to clear licences in Hazara, Malakand, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Mardan within a month. A card that should take days took half a year.
The same neglect shows in hospitals. Punjab’s system is overloaded, but its supply chain and attendance still work. In KP, the Sehat Insaf Card has become a card of disappointment. The government announced free treatment for six million families but reached only about 2.2 million—less than half. Even those with a card suffer. You take a patient to an empanelled hospital and are told the government has not paid the hospital for months. Reports confirm that patient care at outsourced hospitals suffers due to payment delays, with the Health Foundation admitting technical issues. For a file, it is technical; for a poor family that hired a rickshaw to reach the hospital, it is betrayal. Then there is food. Punjab, due to its own produce and an active food authority, keeps markets somewhat stable. KP, by its own admission, is not self-sufficient. The government now promises self-sufficiency by 2030. A housewife in Mardan or Mingora does not live in 2030; she lives this week. She needs flour and sugar today. A bigger allocation next year cannot cook food this month.
The deepest wound is peace. Punjab, after years of operations, has largely controlled sectarian militancy. In KP, especially in Kurram, Dera Ismail Khan, and Kohat, Shia-Sunni tensions still shut down whole districts. Roads close for weeks, children miss school, trucks carrying food and medicine cannot pass and funerals become routine. The response is usually a delegation, a jirga and a press release. Jirgas have respect, but peace cannot be outsourced to them forever. It needs permanent policing, administration and justice. That writ is missing. Above all hangs education, which will decide the next fifty years. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025–26, Punjab’s literacy rate is 68 percent, the highest in Pakistan, while KP’s is 58 percent. The 2023 Census shows the gap to be wider: Punjab at 66.25 percent and KP at 51.09 percent. The national average is around 60 percent, so Punjab pulls the country up while KP pulls it down.
On the ground, these are children. KP has nearly 4.9 million out-of-school children. The government itself calls 4.7 million out-of-school children a ticking time bomb, but the bomb keeps ticking. In Upper Kohistan, nearly 60 percent of girls’ primary and middle schools are shut due to a teacher shortage. Out of 111 girls’ schools, only 48 are functional. Out of 354 sanctioned posts, only 106 are filled. In Lower Dir, the assembly took notice because 14 schools had no teachers for 14 years. Fourteen years without a teacher means a generation never learned to write its name. According to the Education Monitoring Authority, more than 1,000 schools are temporarily non-functional and 44 are permanently closed due to terrorism threats. How do you build a future when the classroom is locked?
Two more realities matter. First, jobs and infrastructure. Punjab builds motorways, metros, underpasses and industrial estates that create work. In KP, graduates drive rickshaws or wait for a Gulf visa. Interior roads are broken, industrial estates are empty plots and investors stay away because they need stability. Second, everyday corruption. In Punjab, digitization has reduced contact between citizens and clerks. In KP, you still need a reference to get your file moved. That small-scale corruption hurts the poor most. This does not mean Punjab is paradise. It has corruption, inflation, and political fights. But there is a difference in focus. Punjab’s governments, regardless of party, have largely focused on administration. KP’s government, over the last decade, has focused on agitation. Protest politics cannot run a hospital, print a licence or open a school. The people of KP are as hardworking, talented, and patriotic as the people of Punjab. They deserve the same governance. Until Peshawar decides that its first job is not to fight Islamabad but to serve its own people, this comparison will remain painful. For a citizen who wants his licence on time, his medicine on time, his children in school and peace in his street, Punjab feels like paradise compared to the KP.
—The writer is former Regional Executive Inclusive Development at NBP, Mirpur AK.
