Engineering Post Report
There is no denying of the fact that sustainable economic development of a developing country like Pakistan is largely dependent on a robust and low-cost transport and logistic sector throughout the country. Enhanced export competitiveness is also contingent upon the efficient performance of this important sector.
The Federal Government is fully aware of the vital role the transport and logistic sector plays in the development of the national economy and in improving the competitiveness in country’s exports. As such, it is committed to implement a comprehensive development initiative and modernizing the transport and logistic sector through a continuous process of reforms duly supported by focused investment in all of its sub-sectors.
National Highway Authority (NHA) is playing a vital role in improving the quality of road network in the width and breadth of Pakistan which entails in improving the quality and standard of the people through creation of employment opportunities.
The present NHA network, as a matter of record, comprises of 47 national highways, motorways, expressways and strategic roads. Current length of this network is 12743 kilometers.
NHA’s existing portfolio consists of as many as 38 on-going projects involving huge total estimated cost of Rs 1423099.930 million including foreign aid component of Rs 455194.000 million with an allocation of Rs 117514.919 million including foreign aid of Rs 57371.916 million for their continued implementation during financial year 2019-20 under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the Federal Government.
As regards, motorways network, NHA has over the years already constructed four segments of Pakistan Motorway Network i.e. 156 km long Peshawar—Islamabad Motorway (M-1), 357 km long Islamabad-Lahore Motorway (M-2),230km long Lahore-Abdul Hakim motorway (M-3) and Pindi Bhattian –Gojra section and Khanewal-Multan sections of Motorway (M-4) on a virgin corridor bringing remote areas in different parts of the country on mainline and accelerating and boosting much desired and appreciable economic activities.
Work on M-4 from Gojra-Khanewal and on 139 km long Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway (M-9) on Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) basis has also been completed.
Furthermore, 39 kilometers long Havelian-Mansehra and 59 kilometers long Hazara Motorway (E-35) are also under construction.
Work is in progress on 285 km Hakla-Dera Ismail Khan and 91 km Sialkot-Lahore and both are scheduled to be completed by end of 2019 and start of 2020 respectively.
Procurement for 296 kilometer long Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway (M-6) is process presently.
Total length of the already completed and operational motorways and under construction motorways is 2362.3 kilometers.
Through its dedicated efforts NHA has also taken lead in the development of the road infrastructure in the country through the private sector partnership. NHA successfully attracted private sector investment and has so far awarded/supported five projects of worth more than Rs 90 billion.
Three major projects under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and Public Private Partnership (PPP) are:
Lahore –Islamabad Motorway (M-2)
Scope: Overlay and Modernization (all 357 kms)
Project cost: Rs 46,007 million
Status: Project successfully completed and operational since August 2016.
Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway (M-9)
Scope: Conversion of Existing 4-Lane Highway into 6 Lane Motorway (136 kms)
Status: More than 96 per cent substantially completed and already opened to traffic.
Lahore-Sialkot Motorway
Scope: Construction of 4 Lane Motorway (91km)
Cost: Rs 43847 million
Status: Over 53 per cent successfully completed (Completion scheduled in August 2019.
Furthermore, NHA has also planned projects worth Rs 210000 million to be undertaken on PPP basis in the near future.
