RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The National Highway Authority says the Rawalpindi-Kahuta Road dual carriageway project has advanced no more than 5% through the first half of the 2025-26 fiscal year despite a Rs23.845 billion allocation, as detailed in a report by The Express Tribune. Officials attribute the slowdown largely to provincial funding delays that have left Package I waiting to move beyond limited on-ground activity, Jan. 1, 2026.
Multiple accounts of the project’s status point to the same bottleneck: only about 2 kilometers of carriageway have been widened so far, while the rest of the corridor remains largely untouched and unmarked for full execution. ProPakistani’s coverage also cited an NHA spokesperson as saying Package I depends on Punjab’s share of funding and that only Rs800 million has been released so far during the current fiscal year.
The delays are more than a budget headline for daily commuters. A syndicated brief carried by The Tribune (India) noted recurring congestion around train crossings and warned that the lack of progress is contributing to longer travel times, higher accident risk and business disruptions for people traveling between Rawalpindi, Kahuta and onward routes.
Rawalpindi-Kahuta Road work on the ground: 2 kilometers completed, major bridge still pending
The project targets roughly 28.4 kilometers of roadway, widely described in official and media reporting as a critical link for commuters and traffic moving toward Azad Jammu and Kashmir via Kahuta. But the pace on the Rawalpindi-Kahuta Road remains far behind expectations: work has effectively halted beyond the completed stretch between Kahuta Y-Cross and Hothla Stop, and construction has yet to begin on the planned overhead bridge at the Sihala railway crossing — a key choke point where traffic routinely backs up during rail closures.
Residents and transporters argue that completing the dual carriageway — along with the Sihala overhead bridge — could cut the typical trip to roughly 30 to 40 minutes under smoother flow, rather than the prolonged delays now common during peak hours and crossing shutdowns.
Funding split keeps Rawalpindi-Kahuta Road Package I on hold
In the latest official explanation cited in local reporting, the NHA says Package I funding is expected from the Punjab government, while Package II falls under NHA responsibility and is expected to pick up pace before the end of the fiscal year. The funding debate is unfolding inside a broader development-spending framework: the Finance Division’s Budget in Brief for FY2025-26 outlines national allocations and the Public Sector Development Programme structure used to finance federal projects.
Pakistan’s state-run Associated Press of Pakistan also reported that the federal PSDP for 2025-26 set major allocations for infrastructure and listed the National Highways Authority among key recipients, including a headline figure for NHA development spending in its PSDP breakdown. (See APP’s June 10, 2025 report on the national development budget.)
A project with years of restarts and revised expectations
For many residents along the corridor, the Rawalpindi-Kahuta Road delays feel familiar because the project has repeatedly appeared in official plans and public promises. In March 2018, APP reported on the project’s ground-breaking, including a target completion timeline that has long since passed.
Years later, the project still faced pre-start hurdles. A January 2023 report by Dawn said the NHA was seeking procedural clearances for Package I-related work, including land and alignment considerations, before full execution could begin.
And in mid-2025, another Express Tribune report described the project’s inclusion in the FY2025-26 development program and outlined expectations for reduced travel time — expectations that remain unfulfilled as current progress sits near 5%.
For now, commuters and businesses using the Rawalpindi-Kahuta Road are watching for a single turning point: the release of Punjab’s funds for Package I, followed by visible mobilization on the remaining kilometers and the long-promised Sihala crossing bridge.
