Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Communications Minister Hafiz Abdul Karim on Thursday presided over a meeting of National Highway Council (NHC), at the Ministry of Communications. Communications Minister of State Muhammad Junaid Chaudhry, Communications secretary, National Highway Authority chairman and other members of the council participated in the meeting.

The meeting gave approval for budget estimates for 2017-18 and a five year development plan (2018-23). The meeting was informed that under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), around Rs 320 billion were allocated for the year 2017-18. The total number of projects was 85, currently under various phases of execution including 72 ongoing and 13 new projects. In addition, Rs 2.46 billion were allocated as maintenance grant for the annual maintenance of national highways including Rs 0.25 billion for Karakoram Highway (KKH) Thakot-Khunjerab and Rs 0.075 billion for KKH Skardu Road. NHA Chairman Shahid Ashraf Tarar informed the meeting that the organisation had been able to steadily increase its revenue share to around Rs 25 billion over the last three years, thanks to the introduction of financial and administrative reforms. He said the PSDP allocation of NHA had increased tremendously over the last few years which could be assessed easily from the fact that it stood at Rs 63 billion in 2013-14 but rose to Rs 320 billion in 2017-18. He said it reflected the increasing confidence of the federal government in NHA’s ability regarding the most appropriate utilization of the allocated funds. He said the NHA was currently executing projects worth over Rs 1400 billion in all parts of the country. He said a vast network of motorways was being established under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that upon completion in next two years will take the overall length of motorways in Pakistan to over 2400 kilometres.

The meeting also approved the process of reform and restructuring initiated at National Highway Authority under which power had been decentralized from the head quarter to the four main zones of central (Punjab), north (KPK), west (Balochistan) and south (Sindh), each headed by a member (engineer). The NHA chairman informed the meeting that the prime objective of the restructuring process was to enhance the institutional capacity to ensure efficient implementation and monitoring of development projects.

The meeting also discussed in detail the problem of overloading and the resulting damage to the road networks. The chairman informed the meeting that major part of the development activity will be completed in the next five years with the completion of all ongoing and planned projects. It was, therefore, necessary to take immediate steps to overcome the problem of overloading to keep the highways and motorways in safe condition, he said. The meeting decided to form a committee at the ministry to review the efforts already made in this regard and to chalk out a future course of action. The committee would include representatives from Ministry of Communications, National Highway Authority, Motorway Police and private sector experts to hold negotiations with all stakeholders and ensure the implementation of National Highway Safety Ordinance 2000.

The meeting also approved the proposal for the timely promotion of NHA employees, enhancement in rental ceiling for low paid employees to up to Rs 10,000 and admissibility of utility allowance.

The meeting, unanimously, acknowledged the services of the outgoing chairman and his role in the successful and in time completion of mega road projects initiated in the last four years. The federal minister, in his concluding remarks, said without NHA chairman’s dynamic leadership, management skills, honesty and hard work, the giant task of successfully executing the historic motorway network could not have been possible.

Published in Daily Times, November 3^rd 2017.