Muhammad Faisal Kaleem

The National Highway Authority (NHA) will soon invite contractor proposals for the multibillion-rupee Rawalpindi–Kharian Motorway project after approval of the revised PC-1 by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) at an estimated cost of Rs223 billion.

The six-lane 117.2km motorway will be an extension of the currently operational Lahore-Sialkot Motorway and Sialkot-Kharian Motorway, which is under construction. It originates from the junction interchange near Kharian on Sialkot-Kharian Motorway.

The planned motorway runs parallel to the N-5, passing the populous areas of Jhelum, Mangla, Dina, Sohawa, Gujar Khan, Mandra, and finally terminating near Rawat at T-Chowk (the junction of Islamabad Expressway with N-5). This multibillion-rupee project is to be executed under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

According to the documents available with Wealth Pakistan, the NHA Executive Board had recommended the revision of PC-I by the ECNEC through the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) – a key forum in the Ministry of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives for scrutinizing, approving, and forwarding development projects for various federal and provincial bodies.

The project proposal was approved by the P3A (PPP) board on July 2, 2025. “In November, the CDWP recommended the revised PC-1 to the ECNEC with the revised scope of the six-lane, but at the construction cost to be rationalized by the NHA based on its Composite Schedule Rate (CSR) 2025,” reads the document.

In addition to the construction cost, the overhead charges should also be reduced as per the observations of the technical section. Once the cost rationalization is completed, a modified revised PC‑I will need to be resubmitted after fulfilling all codal requirements. Only then will the project be advertised for contractor proposals. Initially, the project was approved by the ECNEC in 2022 at an estimated cost of around Rs110 billion, a figure that has now doubled.

After fulfilling all formalities, the project was contracted to M/s Techno-Matracon in association with M/s Power China Chengdu as the lead constructor and M/s ACC as the design & supervision consultant on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis. However, the contract was suspended last year after the contractor failed to submit the financial close.

Credit: INP-WealthPk