CHITRAL: The residents of Ayun and Kalash valleys have shown concerns over what they call snail’s pace work on construction of Ayun-Kalash Valleys Road, saying that government and National Highway Authority (NHA) are testing the patience of people of Ayon and paving the way for protests.

Addressing a protest meeting in Ayun, they said that five months ago Prime Minister’s Inspection Team chairman came to Chitral and announced that work on the road would continue without any interruption and the road would be completed by the end of October.

They regretted that after his departure from Chitral, work was stopped altogether and it was quite impossible to achieve the target even by the end of the year.

They said whenever locals started protests against NHA, an excavator and a dumper were seen on the road, and at one or two places, ugly and substandard culverts were seen being constructed, after which practically no work was seen being done anywhere.

“The presence of one or two machines in a mega project costing billions of rupees is tantamount to throwing dust in the eyes of people,” they said.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2025