LAHORE: Pakistanis pay taxes to the state, but there is another tax imposed on citizens that rarely appears in any government budget: the tax on their time. Millions of citizens lose productive hours every year on different tasks.
This includes commuting to work and schools, waiting in government hospitals, obtaining driving licenses, registering property, securing utility connections, paying taxes and completing routine government procedures.
There is no comprehensive national study that calculates the total number of hours Pakistanis lose annually in dealing with the state. However, available official and international evidence shows that the burden is substantial and deserves to be treated as an economic cost of poor governance.
The latest Pakistan Labor Force Survey provides an indication of the commuting burden. According to the 2024-25 survey, 69.5 per cent of workers reach their workplace in less than 30 minutes, but 20.3 per cent spend 31-45 minutes travelling, 5.6 per cent take 46-60 minutes and 4.6 per cent spend more than an hour. The figures are for one-way travel, meaning a significant proportion of workers spend well over an hour every working day simply travelling to and from work.
This is not merely a transport problem. It is an economic loss involving fuel, vehicle depreciation, pollution, fatigue and, most importantly, productive human time.
The burden becomes more obvious when citizens deal with the government. Punjab has been collecting feedback from people using public services through its Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program. The programme currently covers 26 services in all 36 districts and is specifically designed to identify weaknesses in service delivery. It has monitored services involving health, land registration, police, licences and other government transactions.
The very existence of such a programme demonstrates that the government recognises that obtaining a public service can be a difficult experience. Earlier data from the programme recorded millions of government transactions, including visits involving health services, driving licences and land registration.
The World Bank’s latest work provides further evidence that the problem is sufficiently serious to require systemic reform. Its 2026 assessment of Pakistan examined 52 citizen-facing services across 11 government entities in Punjab, identifying opportunities to digitise and integrate them.
This is the direction Pakistan needs to take. A citizen should not have to spend half a day travelling to an office, standing in a queue, submitting documents, returning because a form is incomplete and then making another trip simply to collect the result.
The hidden cost can be considerable. If a worker earning Rs2,000 a day loses one working day obtaining a licence, registering property or resolving a utility problem, the official government fee does not represent the real cost. The citizen has also sacrificed income, transport expenses and valuable time.
The government therefore needs to begin measuring citizen time as an economic indicator. Every major public service should have a published standard showing the number of visits, waiting time, processing time and total citizen hours required.
Pakistan could develop a citizen time loss index, covering commuting, hospitals, licences, electricity, gas and water connections, taxation, land registration, building approvals and other essential services.
The objective should not merely be a faster government. There should be less government time imposed on citizens.
Digitalisation and artificial intelligence now provide the opportunity to achieve this. The World Bank’s new Connected Punjab programme is already aimed at expanding digitally enabled public services, while Punjab’s doorstep service initiative is designed to bring several government transactions directly to citizens.
In an economy struggling to raise productivity, Pakistan cannot afford to waste millions of productive hours because citizens are forced to navigate inefficient government systems.
The time of a citizen is an economic resource. Wasting it is also a form of economic waste.
