Karachi is the largest city of Pakistan, and its proud economic nucleus, that fuels the nation’s fiscal, industrial, and commercial lifelines. K-Electric (KE), in turn, serves as the artery that sustains this economic heart. This equation is self-evident and requires no elaborate justification. A city of nearly 30 million people, contributing close to half of Pakistan’s tax revenue, cannot afford instability in its power supply. Yet, unlike other provinces that receive preferential infrastructure attention, Karachi continues to shoulder the demands of trade, technology, and rapid urban growth largely on its own. Despite this neglect, the city remains remarkably resilient, open, productive, and indispensable to Pakistan’s economic continuity.
To undermine the interests of a city that contributes boundlessly while demanding so little is both economically irrational and strategically myopic. With a single regulatory stroke, years of structural reform and painstaking institutional progress have been dismantled. What has been undone overnight is not just a tariff structure, but the very credibility of Pakistan’s energy governance and privatization narrative.
As an active citizen of Karachi, I have personally witnessed the darkest days of the old Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) era, when the city was crippled by load-shedding, theft, and mismanagement. The subsequent transformation remains a classic case study and a valuable reference for the privatization of other DISCOs across Pakistan. It stands as proof that reform, transparency, and private-sector efficiency can truly deliver.
