Blood on the Wires

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28 Apr 2026

How Many Linemen Must Die to Keep the Lights On?

Every day, Kashmir’s homes glow with electricity, and the daily wagers of the Power Development Department (PDD) are being sent up the lines with little more than courage on their backs. No proper safety gear, no meaningful training, no security of job or life, just a meagre wage and a death warrant written in high voltage. Every few weeks, another photograph circulates on social media: a young lineman charred, a father of two wrapped in white, a stretcher wheeled through hospital corridors. The headlines are brief; the outrage is momentary. But the pattern is painfully clear. The system has normalised a form of slow, grinding slaughter where poor men risk their lives daily so that the rest of us can charge our phones and warm our homes. These are not accidents in the true sense of the word. They are the predictable outcome of a callous structure that treats human beings as expendable extensions of a wire and a pole. When workers climb live lines without insulated gloves, without proper harnesses, without helmets, it is not just negligence; it is institutional cruelty. PDD daily wagers today occupy the most dangerous rung of the power sector’s ladder and the weakest place in its hierarchy. They do the dirtiest and riskiest work, often in harsh weather and difficult terrain, yet they remain outside the circle of dignity. Many are kept on temporary rolls for years, paid paltry sums that barely cover basic needs, and denied the protections that regular employees enjoy. This dual exploitation of their labour and of their lives must end. Successive governments have promised regularisation, better pay, and safer working conditions. Committees have been formed, files have moved, and statements have been made on the floor of the House. Yet on the ground, the daily wager still climbs the pole with fear in his heart and nothing but bare hands between him and a 33 kV line. The questions demand honest answers: Why are line staff and daily wagers being sent to work without standard safety kits, insulated gloves, helmets, harnesses, boots, and proper tools? Why is there no mandatory, structured technical training and certification for anyone allowed to work on live lines? Why are families of deceased workers left to run from office to office for compensation, ex gratia, and basic support, reliving their trauma at every counter? A society is judged by how it treats those at the bottom of its ladder. If the backbone of our power system is built on the broken bodies of daily wagers, then something is fundamentally rotten in our governance and our conscience. The government and PDD leadership must move beyond condolence messages and token visits. Concrete, time-bound measures are non-negotiable. It is easy to glorify the PDD worker as a ‘frontline warrior’ when a storm snaps the supply and plunges our towns into darkness. It is much harder to ensure that the same worker returns home alive after restoring our power. The real tribute is not a headline or a wreath, it is a helmet, a harness, a contract, and a guarantee that his life matters. The next time a PDD daily wager leaves home at dawn, his children should not have to wonder whether he will return at dusk. That is the minimum a civilised society owes to the hands that keep its lights on.