ISLAMABAD, Jun 11 (APP):National Highway Authority (NHA) has been playing a vital role in improving the productivity and competitiveness of businesses, and the quality of travel with an emphasis on safety, apart from creating job opportunities, said Economic Survey 2019-2020 release here on Thursday.
Pakistan is virtually bisected into two halves by River Indus and the
Eastern segment is historically well developed. For better East-West
connectivity, numerous bridges have been constructed across river
Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej. Currently, there are three
North-South corridors N-5 (Grand Trunk Road,N-55 (Indus Highway) and
Motorway M-1 (Peshawar-Islamabad), M-2 (Islamabad-Lahore), M-4 (Panda
Bhatia-Faisalabad-Gogra-Shorkot-Khanewal-Multan), M5 (Multan-Sukkur),
and M-9 ( Karachi Hyderabad Motorway) whereby M6( Sukkur-Hyderabad
Motorway) is being planned on Build-Operate-Transfer mode) with only
N55 on the western side of River Indus. A newly planned Western
corridor of CPEC is being executed, which is at different stages of
implementation.
The present NHA network comprises of 39 national highways, motorways,
expressways and strategic roads. The existing portfolio of NHA
consists of 40 on-going projects with an allocation of Rs 117,514.836
million in PSDP 2019-20 out of which Rs 57,371.916 million is the
Foreign Exchange Component (FEC) and Rs 60,142.919 million is the
local component.
To ensure smooth and efficient movement of goods and passengers while
ensuring safety, NHA is planning and executing Khunjrab to Gwadar
connectivity under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).The
CPEC projects include Havelian-Thakot (N-35), Multan-Sukkur already
completed and Operational, 3 Hakla-D.I. Khan Motorway, under
construction, Yarik- Zhob portion of N-50 , PC-I approved by ECNEC,
Zhob- Quetta portion of N-50 under tendering , Hoshab-Awaran section
400 km at design stage.
NHA has already constructed green field segments of Motorway network
viz M-1 (Peshawar-Islamabad), M-2 (Islamabad-Lahore), M-3
(Lahore-Abdul-Hakim), M-4 (Pindi Bhattian-Faisalabad-Gojra-Shorkot-Khanewal-Multan), M5
(Multan-Sukkur), E35 (Hassan Abdal-Havelian-Mansehra-Thakot) and M11
(Lahore-Sialkot) boosting economic activities. NHA is now constructing
Hakla-Dera Ismail Khan and plans to execute M-8
(HoshabAwaran-Khuzdar). Public-Private Partnership Authority has
approved construction of M6 (Sukkur-Hyderabad) on BoT basis.
NHA playing vital role in improving connectivity and competitiveness of businesses: Economic Survey
