NHA for countrywide road network

[Salman]

ISLAMABAD: National highway network plays a vital role in socio-economic uplift and National Highway Authority (NHA) is endeavouring to establish a countrywide coordinated road network.

NHA member (Planning) Raja Nowsherwan briefing participants of 13th Senior National Management Course led by Tauqir Ahmad Director General National Institute of Management (NIM) Karachi said NHA was establishing such a network as to improve the trade, accelerate industrialisation and develop Pakistan as hub of regional connectivity.

Total length of NHA’s network is 11,900 kilometers (km) which is only 4 percent of the total roads of the country, but 80 percent of commercial traffic is attached with NHA network.

Under National Trade Corridor Improve Programme, NHA is building highways, motorways and expressways linking China, India, Iran and Afghanistan and Central Asian states.

NHA will invest more than Rs 300 billion over the next 5 to 7 years for this programme. Under NTC programme, Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway (M-1), Lahore-Islamabad Motorway (M-2) and Pindi Bhattain-Faisalabad Motorway (M-3) are already operational and Multan-Faislabad (M-4) under construction.