LAHORE: The Lahore city district is likely to be divided into two administrative parts – namely the North and South districts, with plans to implement it after Basant as the district administration has sent the relevant data sought by the provincial government, Dawn has learnt.
“The plan is almost finalised following approval accorded by the highest office of the Punjab government. Hopefully, the two new districts will be created after Basant,” a senior official in the Lahore administration confirmed while talking to Dawn on Saturday.
The official, who requested anonymity, said the administration had already provided the related data comprising the number of existing 10 tehsils, population, offices, issues etc to the Punjab government. “But I don’t know on which basis – number of tehsils or population, the government decides to bifurcate the city district into two districts. However, the names of the new districts – Lahore North and Lahore South are almost finalised,” he maintained.
Previously, efforts were made to split Lahore into districts, but these proposals did not mature due to administrative, financial, bureaucratic and political issues. In January 2023, the government deferred various plans to divide Lahore into various districts.
However, in August 2024, instead of splitting Lahore into districts, the government increased the number of tehsils from five to 10, including the Nishtar, Wagah, Iqbal Town, Ravi and Saddar tehsils along with the five existing tehsils: Raiwind, Model Town, Lahore Cantt, Lahore City, and Shalimar.
Official says Lahore North to comprise Wagah, Ravi, Saddar, Shalimar, City and Cantt tehsils, whereas the South will consist of Iqbal Town, Model Town, Raiwind and Nishtar tehsils
The initial plan had been introduced in 2017 under which Lahore was to be divided into four districts. The plan was devised after a massive increase in the city district’s population that, at that time, had reached around 10.1m. Initially a committee, headed by the then Lahore commissioner, was formed and it had reached consensus to go ahead with the plan.
A ccording to the committee members, Lahore had become difficult to manage with the existing administrative and functional structure due to increasing population with massive horizontal growth of the city. With the lapse of time, uncertain political situations started developing in 2017 and the proposal was dropped.
However, in 2019, the proposal was revived with a suggestion to reduce the number of districts from four to three. In 2020, another proposal, apparently more viable, was floated. According to this proposal, Lahore was to be divided into two districts.
This proposal was finally declared as viable in a meeting on Dec 3, 2020. It suggested bifurcation of Lahore into City and Saddar districts with creation of five new tehsils — Ferozewala, Thokar Niaz Baig, Kahna, Kot Abdul Malik and Harbanspura — in the two proposed districts. The then Lahore DC had also asked to expedite the preparation of a PC-II for carrying out impact assessment study for geographic and social & cultural cohesion by hiring consultancy services under the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Rules with a direction to retain the historical character of the city during the division. A lot of work was done on the proposal of 2020, but later it slowed down due to a lack of political will and other administrative and functional issues.
When Parvez Elahi became the chief minister, he had also ordered the authorities to revive the proposal with a direction to divide Lahore into three districts, as per the proposal of 2019.
He finally announced to divide Lahore into three districts. However, there was no suggestion as to what would be the third district. That proposal was also deferred at a later stage.
“All previous proposals have become obsolete now, as the current proposal is being worked very seriously to improve local governance, resolve growing civic issues related to traffic, parking, pollution & smog, encroachment etc. With the bifurcation of Lahore, such issues can be resolved with effective governance as this is not possible with one deputy commissioner in the second largest city of Pakistan having a total population of around 25 million people,” the officer argued.
To a question, he said a suggestion had also been given to the government to increase the number of tehsils from 10 to 12. “This suggestion seems from the bureaucracy that, perhaps, does not want Lahore to be split into two districts,” he maintained.
To another question, the official said, the Lahore North is likely to have Wagah, Ravi, Saddar, Shalimar, City and Cantt tehsils, whereas the Lahore South district may comprise of Iqbal Town, Model Town, Raiwind and Nishtar tehsils.
Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2026
