In the second week of March, while the media was busy covering the deadly train hijacking in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, the provincial assembly quietly and in great haste passed an important and now controversial piece of legislation: the Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act, 2025. With little to no discussion or opposition to the bill, it silently slipped through the Balochistan provincial assembly and became an act on March 14, receiving barely any media coverage. Only after a similar bill in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province sparked controversy did the Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act come into the limelight. … The act says that its purpose is to develop an internationally competitive, stable, and enabling environment for domestic and foreign investment in the provincial mining and minerals sector. Section 22(2) of the act provides for a Mineral Investment Facilitation Authority (MIFA), consisting of different provincial ministries as well as federal entities. Indeed, MIFA operates under the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), which is a federal entity. Section 22(3) states that MIFA can direct any concerned department or committee. Since MIFA operates under the federal government, its decisions would prevail over those of provincial departments…. it seeks to centralize control of provincial mineral resources. In Pakistan, the development of mineral resources has long been the prerogative of provincial governments … Hence, the major concern the Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act has raised is about federal overreach. … Balochistan’s past experiences are cautionary tales. The history of the Reko Diq case via the Engineering and Mining Journal underscores why provincial control over natural resources is important