Aleem Khan blames Punjab, KP govts for delays in highway projects

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Communications Abdul Aleem Khan on Friday blamed provincial governments for delays in the completion of various highway projects.

Presiding over a National Highway Authority (NHA) review meeting, the minister issued a decisive mandate to accelerate the completion of critical infrastructure, signalling a shift toward federal intervention where provincial commitments have faltered.

Expressing formal dissatisfaction with the progress of projects involving the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments, Khan noted that delays would no longer be tolerated, as these delays were impeding progress on many vital projects.

He specifically highlighted that after waiting for over five months for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to fund the Peshawar Northern Bypass, the NHA decided to complete the project independently if provincial funds were not released.

Khan also observed that the Punjab government had remained unable to deliver its promised share for the Rawalpindi-Kahuta project, prompting him to direct the NHA to assume full responsibility for completing the unfinished transit corridors.

Alongside these administrative directives, the minister ordered the expansion of the motorway network, directing that the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway be widened from four to six lanes and that the Sialkot-Kharian and Kharian-Rawalpindi sections be built as six-lane motorways.

He emphasised the need to meet strict technical and timeline targets, directing that the feasibility studies of all NHA projects achieve 100pc accuracy and that the final phases of ongoing works — particularly the bridges on the Peshawar Northern Bypass — be completed before the July monsoon season.

The meeting, attended by the communications secretary and the NHA chairman, also provided the federal minister an opportunity to express displeasure over the slow pace of work.

Khan reiterated that he would prioritise the rapid completion of projects to improve the efficiency of the national transport infrastructure.

The Northern Bypass project, envisioned as part of efforts to complete the Ring Road around Peshawar, has remained stalled due to delays in releases under the federal Public Sector Development Programme and other issues over the past 17 years.

Last year, the KP government formally agreed to arrange bridge finance of Rs4 billion for the early completion of the Northern Bypass, though the project had a target of Rs5.3 billion required to complete the project’s final phase on schedule.

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