NHA initiated Rs1.5t road projects in last four years

ISLAMABAD: Outgoing National Highway Authority (NHA) Chairman Shahid Ashraf Tarar said on Tuesday that road infrastructure projects worth over Rs1.4 trillion have been launched during the past four years in all parts of the country, most of which would be completed by next year.

Talking to media personnel, he said the NHA saved over Rs240 billion through open, fair and transparent bidding processes which amounts to 21% of its overall portfolio. The chairman NHA said that the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) in its Audit Report of 2016-17 acknowledged that the management has saved precious national wealth through transparency.

He quoted the AGP report as saying that the NHA entered into contracts worth Rs761.90 billion against the bid prices of Rs978.29 billion resulting in savings of Rs216 billion.

“Similarly, savings of Rs134.8 billion were observed by undertaking certain important projects on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis without financing through government exchequer,” Tarar said, adding that projects used to take 8 to 10 years in the past but are being completed on time now.

Moreover, he said, in 2013 there were over half a dozen sick projects of the NHA but now most of them have been completed while the remaining two are to be completed by December. These projects included Lowari Tunnel, Lyari Expressway, Qaalt-Chaman-Quetta Highway, Basima-Hoshab Hihgway, Khuzdar Shahdadkot section, and Gwadar-Hosahb section of M-8.

“For improving north-south connectivity, 13 motorway projects have been launched out of which three have been completed while work on the rest is in full swing,” the NHA chairman said, noting that total length of motorways will increased to 2,400 km once all the projects are completed, from 580 km in 2013.

He also said that all the provinces are being connected through a network of high-quality roads and highways as a number of roads projects had been launched in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir.

He said that in 2013 only Rs63 billion were allocated for NHA under the Public Sector Development Programme which reached Rs319 billion in the on-going fiscal year, indicating of increased road infrastructure development activity in the country.

Similarly, he said, east-west connectivity is being attached greater importance as well with roads being built to improve linkages between Balochistan and rest of the country.

“NHA has enhanced its revenue collection through toll plazas by 42% during past four years,” Tarar added.