Inside Pakistan’s most persistent industrial ghost

On the 10th of June 2015 life in the Karachi Steel Mill Township came to an abrupt standstill. Spread over 19,000 acres on the far-east side of Karachi’s coast, Pakistan Steel Mills is a haunting relic that represents the thwarted ambitions of the Pakistan that came into existence in 1947. 

By all accounts the township was once an impressive bit of this country’s history. Built with Soviet help from 1973-1985, Pakistan Steel Mills is a completely integrated steel mill with different plants, including a thermal power station, forklifts, warehouses, conveyor belts, railway tracks, and stockyards. 

Dozens of industries — from vehicle manufacturing units to downstream steel processors — sit on parcels of land in this area. These industries were meant to orbit the Pakistan Steel Mills, to gain their raw materials from there and set Pakistan on the path to industrialisation. 

In the surrounding areas is Steel Town, an 8,126-acre suburb built to house the workforce of Pakistan Steel Mills. Permanent officers and workers were allotted homes here on subsidised rents, anchoring an entire residential community to the fortunes of the complex it served. The settlement stretches along the N-5 National Highway, running eastward from Karachi toward Thatta. Administratively part of Gadap Town in the Bin Qasim tehsil of Malir District, Steel Town sits about 21 kilometres from Karachi’s airport and roughly 40 kilometres from the port — close enough to the city’s arteries to feed an industrial giant and to feel its silence when that giant fell quiet.

The shut down came as a blow to the national consciousness but it did not come as a surprise. Sui Southern Gas Company, the utility that supplied natural gas to the Mills, had for years pressed for the settlement of unpaid bills approaching Rs 35 billion. Eventually they shut off the gas supply — abruptly forcing Pakistan’s national steel producer into complete stoppage.