Across Islamabad, an unseen workforce starts its day long before many residents of the city’s affluent sectors step outside
By Dr Muhammad Shahid
ISLAMABAD: Before Islamabad’s elite sectors wake up, another city is already at work. In the half-light of F-6, F-7, E-7 and F-8, sanitation workers sweep leaves from wide avenues, gardeners trim hedges outside high-walled houses, security guards finish night shifts at gates, domestic workers arrive in vans and on foot, and delivery riders wait outside cafés that many of them cannot afford.
They are the quiet workers of the federal capital — the people who keep Islamabad clean, guarded, fed, polished and functioning, often without becoming part of the city’s larger public conversation.
Islamabad was designed as Pakistan’s planned capital: orderly sectors, green belts, diplomatic enclaves, government offices and elite residential neighbourhoods. Behind this organised image, however, is a large labour force that works long hours, travels long distances and often depends on modest wages.
For many of these workers, the working day begins far from the manicured streets they serve. They travel from Bhara Kahu, Tarnol, Golra, Rawat, Sohan, Khanna, I-10, I-11 and Rawalpindi’s working-class localities. Some spend two to three hours daily commuting to houses, markets, offices and apartment blocks in the capital’s wealthier sectors.
A clean city and its cleaners
Sanitation workers are among the most visible workers in Islamabad, yet their personal struggles are not always widely understood. Their work is seen every morning, but their lives are rarely discussed.
A sanitary worker told this scribe on condition of anonymity that he worked on a daily-wage basis. “I receive Rs37,000 a month. But if I am on leave for any day, the wage for that day is deducted from this amount,” he said.
He further said that salaries were sometimes delayed. “At the end of May, we received the salary for April,” he added.
In January 2025, it was reported in the media that hundreds of sanitation workers associated with contractors hired by the CDA had stopped work in some Islamabad areas after allegedly going unpaid for three months. The incident drew attention to the challenges faced by outsourced workers and showed the need for stronger monitoring of payment systems, safety arrangements and grievance mechanisms. This correspondent approached the CDA chief Sohail Ashraf, via phone, but could not get his comment for the story due to reasons best known to the official.
Even as the CDA is promoting modern waste-management initiatives — including a three-bin system introduced at Jinnah Super in 2025 — workers who handle the city’s garbage also deserve continued attention in terms of timely wages and workplace dignity.
Guards at the gates
At almost every gate in Islamabad’s elite sectors stands a security guard — in winter fog, summer heat and monsoon rain.
They guard bungalows, embassies, offices, banks, schools, plazas and apartment towers. Many work long shifts, often six or seven days a week. Private security firms advertise guard services across Islamabad, with an eight-hour shift commonly linked to the legal wage floor and 12-hour shifts costing more, though the amount paid by clients is not always the same as the amount received by the guard.
The guard’s job is physically demanding and often lonely. He may spend the whole night outside a house whose residents barely know his name. He is trusted to protect property, but his own living and working conditions often remain outside public attention.
Delivery riders and the new urban economy
Islamabad’s food and parcel delivery riders represent a newer class of urban labour. They are everywhere — outside restaurants in F-7, Blue Area, G-9, Bahria and DHA — but their work is still commonly treated as flexible “gig” labour rather than regular employment.
Pakistan’s Labour Force Survey 2024–25 included digital platform employment for the first time, showing that gig work has become a measurable part of the national labour market. Gallup Pakistan’s review of the survey noted that online gig work constituted 2.9 percent of total employment.
In Islamabad, riders face traffic risks, fuel costs, app penalties, uncertain earnings and pressure to deliver quickly. In 2026, foodpanda announced a helmet drive in Karachi and Islamabad, acknowledging rising traffic risks for delivery riders in congested urban centres.
Such steps are useful, but the growing platform economy also raises broader questions about worker safety, insurance, income stability and social protection.
Gardeners of the green capital
Islamabad’s reputation as a green city rests heavily on gardeners and groundskeepers. They maintain lawns, embassies, parks, medians, farmhouses, government residences and private houses.
Their work is seasonal and physically demanding. In summer, they work under extreme heat; in winter, they arrive before many residents step outside. Many are hired informally by households or through contractors. Few have written terms, health insurance or retirement benefits.
They help preserve the capital’s image of order and greenery, but many of them live in areas where access to clean water, sanitation and secure housing remains a daily challenge.
The city behind the city
Islamabad is Pakistan’s seat of power, but it is also a city of workers who make that power visible, comfortable and functional.
They serve ministers, judges, diplomats, bureaucrats, journalists, executives and expatriates. They clean government-linked buildings, guard official residences, deliver food to offices and homes, and maintain the houses where decisions are made. Their work quietly connects the formal city with the settlements, suburbs and neighbourhoods from where they come.
The city’s social geography makes this relationship visible. The better-off live in sectors with wide roads, parks and private security. Many workers come from katchi abadis, rural outskirts and Rawalpindi’s dense neighbourhoods. Every morning, their labour connects these different parts of Islamabad.
A city built on unseen hands
Islamabad’s elite sectors are often described through property prices, cafés, schools, embassies and political power. But another way to understand the city is through the people who arrive before sunrise and leave after dark.
The sanitation worker who clears the street, the domestic worker who looks after another family’s home, the guard who stays awake through the night, the rider who moves through traffic, and the gardener who keeps the lawns green — together, they form the hidden human infrastructure of the capital.
Islamabad may be planned on maps, but it is kept alive by workers who rarely appear on those maps. Their contribution deserves greater recognition, not only as a matter of labour rights, but also as part of building a more humane and well-managed capital.
As the city grows and modernises, the people who clean, guard, deliver, maintain and serve it should also become part of its development conversation. Timely wages, safer workplaces, reasonable housing, and clearer employment arrangements would not weaken the city’s image; they would strengthen it.
A capital is not known only by its roads, buildings and green belts. It is also known by how it treats the people who keep it running before the rest of the city wakes.
