BUNER: Buner district is in the grip of its worst road infrastructure crisis in years, with crumbling highways, broken link roads, and stalled government projects grinding daily life to a halt.
A journey that should take 30 minutes from Daggar to Gokand now stretches past two hours, and only if the road hasn’t been swallowed by rain and landslides.
At Buner Headquarters Hospital, Dr. Akhtar said the cost is measured in lives, not just time. Last month, a pregnant woman was rushed from Totalai in labor, but her van got trapped eight kilometers from the hospital in a stretch of mud and potholes.
By the time she reached the emergency, it was too late. “Roads are killing us faster than disease,” he said, as ambulances continue to lose critical minutes on routes that break apart with every rainfall.
For students in mountain villages like Chamla, school itself has become uncertain. Zarmina, a 10th-grade student, spends days at home whenever the sky darkens because the single track to her village turns to slush. As exams approach, she worries about missed classes more than exam questions.
Teachers report attendance dropping by nearly half during rain as children from more than 40 villages find themselves cut off from classrooms. The district’s economy is bleeding too.
Buner’s white marble is famous across Pakistan, but traders said that there is no advantage due to frequent traffic incidents. Damaged roads and soaring tax costs have pushed transport expenses up by thousands per trip.
Trucks refuse the broken roads, and business shifts to Mardan instead. “Our mountains are full of stone, but our roads are full of gravel,” Rahman said. Commuters describe the main Daggar–Gokand road as a graveyard for vehicles. Daily commuter Siraj Khan calls it a graveyard, not a road.
Dust chokes drivers in summer and mud traps them in monsoon, while the incomplete C&W project started in 2023 remains unfinished. Frustration boiled over this week when residents blocked Daggar Chowk for hours, holding banners that read “Sarak do, Jan do” and “Buner ko road do”.
They are demanding immediate funds for repairs and action against contractors who abandoned work. Officials in the C&W Department say a PC-1 for permanent rehabilitation has been sent to Peshawar, and a damage survey is underway, but they could not give a timeline. With monsoon 2026 already beginning, families in Totalai, Chamla and Gookand fear another season of isolation. For Buner, the question is no longer about development. It is about access to hospitals, schools, and markets.
They appealed to Chief Minister Sohail Afridi to release a special package for the already calamity-hit people of Buner and speed up work on road projects, if they want to secure the PTI vote bank.
The local said that they had great expectations from their MNA, Barrister Gohar, who is also chairman of the party, but so far, he has not contributed to diverting funds for road infrastructure. The people are now thinking of making their roads and streets by collecting donations.
Read also: Buner residents demands Barrister Gohar to start work on Sawari Daggar bypass
