From 36% to 56%: How Electricity Quietly Took Over Pakistan’s Household Energy Budget

Three decades of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics HIES data tell a powerful story:

In 1996-97, electricity accounted for 36% of household fuel & lighting expenditure.

By 2024-25, it has risen to 56%.

That means more than half of every rupee spent on household energy in Pakistan today goes to electricity.

This is not just an energy transition — it is an economic transformation.

Electricity did not rise because it became a luxury.

It rose because it replaced everything else:

• Kerosene fell from 5.7% to almost zero
• Firewood declined from 30% to 17%
• Dung cakes halved

Electricity became the default — for lighting, cooling, charging, studying, working, and communicating.

Once electricity crossed the 50% threshold after 2010, household vulnerability changed permanently. Any tariff increase now affects the majority of household energy spending.

This also explains why:
• Electricity prices trigger public anger
• Solar adoption is exploding
• Energy policy has become politically sensitive

Pakistan’s energy poverty is no longer about access — it is about affordability.

The real question today is no longer “Do households have electricity?”

It is: “Can households afford to depend on electricity?”

Pakistan did not just adopt electricity.

Pakistan became economically dependent on it.

Source: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, HIES 1996–97 to 2024–25