CHITRAL: The residents of both Upper and Lower Chitral continue to face immense hardships as critical road projects including the Chitral-Shandur Road, the Booni-Buzund Road and the Kalash Valleys Road suffer from inordinate delays and deteriorating conditions.
Shabbir Ahmed Khan, chairman of the Chitral Development Forum (CDF), while addressing local media, said the dilapidated state of the road network as the “prime issue” hindering the region’s progress.
He expressed grave concern over the National Highway Authority’s (NHA) maintenance standards, stating that the arterial routes from the Lowari Tunnel all the way to Chitral City resemble ruins rather than functional highways although hundreds of millions of rupees have been spent on it over the years.
He criticised the NHA for the inordinate delay in completion of road projects including Chitral-Shandur Road (153km) and Kalash valleys Road (46km), which continues to face technical and funding bottlenecks for the last ten years.
He said that despite the announcement of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif during his visit to Chitral for early completion of the road projects in October last, no headway was made, an utter disappointment for the residents.
The CDF chairman highlighted that the NHA’s repair work was “too below the standard,” leading to rapid deterioration and the patch work of the potholes did not sustain the traffic pressure even for a month.
Mr. Khan also criticised the provincial government for its failure to complete the Buni-Buzund Road (35-km) project in Upper Chitral executed by communication & works (C&W) department which had begun in 2008.
He expressed regret that the project was supposed to be completed by 2012, but nearly 14 years later there is still no sign of its completion.
He said that the poor condition of arteries and delay in completion of the road projects, the area is worst affected in all other sectors of development including tourism and healthcare and the cost of living.
“The fabulous potential of tourism here could not be exploited until proper road infrastructure and all-weather access to all the 36 sub-valleys of this mountainous area was ensured,” he said.
He vowed to mobilise the people across the valley of Chitral and launch a full-scale movement to force the government to pay attention to the roads.
Published in Dawn, March 23th, 2026