INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATION: HOW NAVEED RAFAQAT TRANSFORMED PUNJAB SAHULAT BAZAARS INTO PAKISTAN’S ONLY STATUTORY AUTHORITY EVOLVED FROM SECTION 42 COMPANY

Abstract

The institutional innovation and change discussed in this paper is the leadership-based change in Punjab Sahulat Bazaars Authority (PSBA) of the retail industry in Pakistan, the only successful story of re-organization of a Section 42 company under a full-fledged statutory authority. In the following paper, legal restructuring, financial independence, and governance practices of PSBA under the chairmanship of Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad will be evaluated through the lens of document-based qualitative approach that implies an implicit network of quantitative actions. This has been talked of according to the independent audit, official documentation and probing by third party media and has referred PSBA as a distinct model of law based retail regulation. Real time computerized displays of price, solar powered infrastructural property, gender in vendor policy and the abolition of recurrent subsidies are the most common innovations being rolled out in this transition. The findings indicate that PSBA has led in price regulation, services and digital enforcement with the savings it is providing consumers annually in the form of a 35 percent consumer savings that are lower than market rates. The research transforms PSBA into a model of non-routine institutional reform in the country that has its roots in legal empowerment and transformational leadership in a developing economy.