Report by Engineering Post
National Highway Authority (NHA) development projects were somehow maintaining the frequency of suffering from cost and time escalation and suffering from completion within the stipulated period.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in its recent meeting in Islamabad considered and approved a couple of NHA projects which suffered from cost escalation and also quite obviously delayed implementation against their stipulated period for completion.
The ECNEC approved a key project namely Lahore-sahiwal-Bahawalpur Motorway cost of which has increased by as much as 65 percent from Rs 264 billion to Rs 436 billion, The project was initially approved by the ECNEC in July 2024 for implementation at an estimated cost of Rs 263785. 585 million. Quite interestingly, though the motorway construction project will primarily benefit the Punjab province but still the federal government was continuing with its funding and construction by NHA though federal funding of the provincial projects was restricted under the National Fiscal Pact .The Punjab government has been asked to at least finance half of the motorway construction cost but a final decision in this regard was still pending.
The ECNEC was informed that almost 90 percent of the land acquisition for Package-1 for the motorway has since been completed.
The NHA will start the construction work from Lahore Ring Road to the Raiwind -Kasur Road Interchange utilizing the allocated funds under the PSDP. The project alignment will be reevaluated by the NHA in due course of time to ensure its better integration with the existing motorways.
The Rawalpindi Ring Road project also suffered from cost escalation as its cost has risen by 40 per cent to Rs 33 billion. The project was originally approved in 2021 and following expansion in its scope with increased cost due to design changes such as additional culerts, underpasses , and bridges.
NHA on the whole was implementing as many as 89 development projects and was in the process of launching 15 new development schemes during the ongoing financial year 2024-25. These ongoing and new development schemes will be mentioned briefly some other time on these pages, please.
Transport sector and road infrastructure quite obviously have an enduring effect on a country’s economic prosperity.
NHA, through its dedicated efforts has taken a lead in the road infrastructure development of Pakistan. Till sometime back, NHA network comprised 48 National Highways , Motorways and Strategic Road and length of this network was 14480 kilometers.
