Off the road: How rising fuel costs are pushing ride-hailing captains to the brink

Amjad Ali Khan, 27, left his hometown of Umerkot and moved to Karachi in 2010 in search of a better livelihood. Over the next decade, he moved from one precarious job to another — working in factories, taking odd shifts at hotels and cleaning bungalows — before finally settling down as a driver. Two years back, he rented two cars — one for himself and the other for his brother-in-law — and signed up on Yango, a ride-hailing service.

Amjad’s earnings rose to roughly Rs12,000 per day, of which nearly half went to rent and fuel, leaving him with around Rs3,500 to take home and thereby allowing him to call his family of four to the port city earlier this year. But then, war came to the Middle East.

While Pakistanis are no strangers to conflict (with neighbouring India and Afghanistan in recent months), this one, despite not involving Islamabad, hit the country’s jugular vein: a massive surge in petrol prices.

When the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, the impact travelled far beyond the battlefield, disrupting oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz — a corridor that carried 20 per cent of global liquified natural gas and a quarter of seaborne oil. In the aftermath, Pakistan increased petrol prices by a staggering Rs55 overnight, with another rise on the cards in the coming days.

For Amjad, the developments threatened to upend the life he had only just started to build. “Even during Ramazan, we managed,” he said, referring to the holy month when economic activity typically slows down in the country. “Now, [the cost of] petrol has completely disrupted everything.”

On the day of the interview, he had already warned the car’s owner he might return the vehicle if prices rose again. “I have already decided … if there is yet another price hike, I will head back to my village,” he said. Ever since petrol prices skyrocketed to Rs321.17, Amjad has been scrambling to make ends meet. “Now there are days when I return home with no money.”

The 27-year-old is not alone.

Muhammad Tahir, who works as a Foodpanda rider, narrated a similar ordeal to Dawn. He would make between Rs50 and Rs70 per delivery and get a weekly fuel allowance of Rs1,500, far from what he spends every day. He was only getting by when the petrol bomb dropped. Now, a day’s fuel costs him Rs1,600 instead of the previous Rs1,000-Rs1,100.

“If we request an increase in the fuel allowance, we are straight-up told to leave,” he sighed. Like Amjad, Tahir too has decided to quit. There’s no other option, he lamented.

According to business and economic journalist Khurram Hussain, Asia has been hit the hardest due to the oil price and supply........

© Dawn Prism