IT was a humid Sunday afternoon in Islamabad. The small pharmacy was empty with just one man behind the cash counter. A woman approached him, prescription and medicines in hand. She was simply but not shabbily dressed. But she still returned a quarter of the medication once the bill was generated. The man behind the counter explained the bill was around Rs4,000, and she returned about Rs1,000 worth of medication. This took place at a pharmacy in the heart of Islamabad, where real estate sells or rents at eye-watering prices. There was no doctor nearby or a hospital. The woman, chances are, lived close by.

It is not a dramatic story or one that really shocks. Tell it to a group of people and they will nod, and, in fact, recount similar stories. Of people’s difficulties. The loans they have taken. How someone got a utility bill higher than their salary. How a colleague had switched from his car to a motorbike. How another had begun shopping for lower-quality food.

Conversations such as these abound. And this is before the past week when petrol hikes — even those of a daily kind — had begun to hit the headlines. People are now taking bets on when the price of petrol will hit 400 — a far more probable prospect than the cricket team managing a respectable score.

That the government realises the impact of the petrol hikes is evident from its announcement to relaunch its subsidy scheme. There is little clarity on how effective........

© Dawn