Abstract
Pakistan is one the most important country in the developing world, but it has been volatile for various reasons, such as inconsistent democracy, internal conflicts and instability, deprivation of the masses, poor governance, corruption, and lack of accountability. A lot of efforts are being done and a great number of reforms, structural changes have been introduced on different institutional and administrative level to bring the country on the track to progress and prosperity, but so far none worked as desired. However, it is, indeed, a positive sign that the government has shown considerable flexibility in changing its traditional role of having a monopoly over every sector by engaging civil society, private organization, and encouraging community participation in different areas to deepen the democracy. It will certainly help in bringing improvement in the performance, efficiency, and responsiveness of different government departments so that the public could be better facilitated. This paper proposes the Devolution Plan – 2001 as a mean of deepening democracy in Pakistan, and explains the some of the salient features of the plan. Further, it presents an analysis of the major issues and challenges of the plan, and its impact on Balochistan particularly.
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