Senate forms panel to look into utilisation of NHA revenue

For not putting borders on highways, standing committee chairman suggests NHA chairman be held responsible

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Communications has constituted a sub-committee to look into the issue of the National Highway Authority's revenue and its utilisation. Senator Fida Muhammad will be the convener of the sub-committee.

The development took place during a meeting of the Senate standing committee held at the Parliament House on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Senator Hidayatullah.

Chairman Hidayatullah said, "Accidents are taking place due to lack of borders on different locations of the motorway. For the last 10 months, the NHA chairman has been advised time and again to put borders on the highways. Why not hold the NHA chairman responsible for the accidents during the last 10 months."

The committee chairman directed the motorway police to provide information about the accidents that occurred due to animals coming in front of vehicles on Islamabad to Peshawar motorway.

Senator Mian Atiq said, "The NHA should inform us about the income generated from each toll plaza. DG Audit conducted a three-year audit of NHA. The details should be provided."

The Senate committee was informed that the NHA had sought a loan of Rs50 billion to rehabilitate the longest highway of Pakistan N-5 connecting Karachi to Torkham.

The senators were also informed that it was the conditionality of the ADB that rigorous axle load limit for trucks be observed.

Briefing the senators, the NHA officials said the recently constructed Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway (M-9) was facing premature rutting due to overloading. Overloading of trucks had led to increase in cost of maintenance and rehabilitation of the country's road network.
The country's main road corridor N-5 which was rehabilitated in 2012-14 with a loan from World Bank deteriorated within five to seven years due to excessive overloading of trucks.

Ten per cent of trucks on M-1, 82% on N-55, 88% on N-5, 88% on N-75, 5% on M-2 and 5% on M-4 were carrying loads over the permissible load limits. A total of 110 weighing stations measure axle load on motorways and highways.

Average daily traffic on N-5 ranges from 20,000 to 75,000 vehicles per day. The percentage share of trucks in average daily traffic on different sections of N-5 was about 40%.

The country's truck fleet consisted of nearly 250,000 units out of that 40% were rigid trucks. The technology of 50% fleet consisted of rigid suspension. Two-axle trucks (Bedford) fleet consisted of rigid suspension. Two axle trucks were short haulage trucks but still used to cater for long haulage. Due to many reasons two-axle and three-axle rigid trucks were the most unsafe.

The NHA further told the committee that overloading by trucks was resulting in premature "fatigue cracking and shear deformation" in the roads.

The federal government was spending billions of rupees every year to maintain the motorways and highways that deteriorate due to overloading effects.

According to the National Transport Research Centre (NTRC), in 1982, traffic composition mainly consisted of two-axle trucks which accounted for 96.5% of the trucks. At that time, three-axle and more than that were quite insignificant in number.

The damaging factor of the two-axle trucks was more than the eight tonnes standard axle. Since then there had been significant increase in axle loads. In accordance with the provisions of the National Highway Safety Ordinance 2000, the National Highway and Motorway Police was empowered to enforce axle overload control.

The NTRC initiated a pilot study on five locations of N-5 - seven days a week in 2017 to assess the updated situation of axle load in the country.

According to this study, three-axle trucks were predominant commercial vehicle on N-5 and account for more than 50% of the vehicles. A significant number of trucks had gross vehicle weight of more than 30% of the permissible weight.

It was obvious from the finding of the interim report of NHA that no national highway could complete even one-third of its design life.

The Senate committee expressed concern over delay in the construction of the road originating from Shobazai, Loralai on the National Highway M-70 to Taunsa Sharif N-55 via Kibzai Musa Khel in Balochistan.

The committee expressed its displeasure with NHA for not providing details of the revenue collected from toll plazas on national highways and motorways during the period from 2013 to 2019. Details were also not provided about the amount utilised for routine and periodic maintenance and rehabilitation of NHA network with the collected revenue.