Fahad Ahmed earns Rs 30,000 a month as a motorcycle delivery rider in Karachi. Yesterday, filling his tank cost him Rs 1,200 - four percent of his monthly income in a single transaction.
"How do I feed my family now?" he asked, standing at a petrol station where prices jumped to Rs 321 per liter overnight, a Rs 55 increase driven by the escalating Iran conflict. "The government says this is war. But for us, every day is already war."
A billion people aren't a statistic - they're a billion stories. Ahmed's story is Pakistan's story right now, multiplied across 240 million people.
The price didn't increase by Rs 55 because oil got more expensive. According to government documents, global oil prices only account for Rs 35 of that jump. The rest? A petroleum levy increase from Rs 85 to Rs 105 per liter - essentially a tax that hits everyone from motorcycle riders to truck drivers equally hard.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar's office defended the move as necessary to meet IMF targets. Meanwhile, government ministers still receive hundreds of liters of free petrol monthly, according to Dawn newspaper.
The human cost is immediate and brutal. This week, three people were shot at a petrol station in Sialkot during an argument over queue position. Not over ideology. Not over politics. Over who gets to fill their tank first when fuel might run out.
"This is what economic collapse looks like on the ground," said Ayesha Siddiqa, a Karachi-based economist. "When ordinary disputes turn deadly because people are desperate."
Pakistan imports 85 percent of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, now a conflict zone. The Iran-Israel war has disrupted shipping routes, forcing Pakistan to seek alternative - and more expensive - suppliers. The government is exploring routes through Gwadar Port and overland from Central Asia, but those take months to establish.
For families already struggling with 28 percent inflation, this is the breaking point. Food prices will spike next - transport costs feed into everything. A tomato in Lahore, bread in Peshawar, school fees in Islamabad - all tied to that Rs 321 number.
Zainab Bibi, a widow in Multan who sells vegetables from a cart, did the math. "My supplier's truck costs went up. He charges me more. I charge customers more. They buy less. I earn less." She paused. "How does that work?"
It doesn't. That's the point. Pakistan's foreign reserves stand at $8.2 billion - barely enough to cover two months of imports. The country is negotiating a new IMF bailout while fuel prices make daily survival increasingly impossible for ordinary Pakistanis.
The government projects this will raise Rs 869 billion in revenue this fiscal year through petroleum levies. That's Rs 869 billion extracted from people who can't afford it, to pay debts they didn't create.
Back at the Karachi petrol station, Ahmed filled only half his tank. "I'll come back when I have more money," he said, though he didn't know when that would be. "What choice do I have?"
