Karachi’s industrial areas badly hit by load-shedding: study

KARACHI: Nearly a third of workers in Karachi’s industrial neighbourhoods are enduring between 18 and 20 hours of power outages every day, with some areas experiencing complete blackouts for more than 20 hours, according to a brief launched Wednesday by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) at Human Rights Commission of Pakistan office.

The study paints a bleak picture of a labour force trapped between a worsening climate crisis and a broken energy system.

Abbas Haider, PILER Director, said the findings reflect decades of policy failure. “For too long, the cost of this city’s energy crisis has been paid by its poorest workers,” he said. “While K-Electric applies its heaviest load shedding schedules to the feeders where labourers live, those same workers are losing sleep, income, and their health. This is not misfortune — it is a consequence of how the system is designed.”

Asim Bashir Khan, author of the study, said the consequences of chronic load-shedding ripple far beyond discomfort. “What we documented is a cascade of harm,” he said. “Workers arrive at factories already exhausted from sleepless, sweltering nights. Without fans or cooling, children cannot study and families cannot sleep. Water motors stop working, which means no water for drinking or sanitation. The spread of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and malaria increases. Workplace accidents rise. Domestic violence rises. These are not separate problems — they all flow from the same source.”

The study documents that 80 percent of Sindh’s workers fall entirely outside the social security net administered by the Sindh Employees Social Security Institution (SESSI), largely because registration thresholds exclude piece-rate and informal workers. More than 90 percent of labour contractors are not registered with the Sindh Revenue Board, further compounding the gap between law and practice.

Habibudin Junaidi, senior trade unionist and leader of the Peoples Labour Bureau, said the study arrives at a critical moment. “Unemployment is increasing because of climate change, and it is the working class that bears that burden,” he said. “This research gives us the evidence and the arguments to move forward. It is now up to those in power to act on it.”

Asad Iqbal Butt, chairperson of the HRCP, said the situation of workers could not be separated from the broader collapse of state accountability. “Forty-five percent of Pakistan’s population is living below the poverty line,” he said. “The minimum wage must be raised to PKR 75,000 if we are serious about giving workers a decent life — and yet 80 percent of workers do not even receive the current minimum wage. The state has failed to implement its own laws and its own policies. That failure has a human cost, and we are seeing it documented here today.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026