National Highway Authority (NHA) has said that the authority is facing difficulties due to shortage of the required funds for various on-going projects. The chairman, NHA, Altaf Ahmed Chaudhry apprised the meeting of Executive Board of NHA.
He said that out of Rs 8 billion, allocated for NHA in the first quarter of the current financial year, only Rs 1.8 billion had been released so far, as the Board reviewed several ongoing projects across the country. He informed the meeting that the south-bound carriageway of Lyari expressway had already been completed and opened for traffic.
While the work on the north-bound carriageway was stopped due to encroachments in the area, however, he informed the meeting that the Sindh government had promised to clear the encroachments so that work on the project could be resumed. He said that the tunnel excavation on Lowari project would be completed in the next two months while the project would be completed by December 2009.
He further said that no money had been released for NHA for the last four months, which has caused major hurdle to onward payment to the contractors. He said the non-availability of funds could cause undue delays in the completion of projects and underscored the need for early release of remaining funds. He said that construction of safe and environment friendly Highways remain the top priority of the organisation.
He informed the meeting that Balochistan remained at the top of government's priority list and about 40 per cent of NHA projects were in that province. Moreover, he said that the completion of these projects would enhance the socio-economic position of the people especially living in long-neglected areas and also help promote inter-provincial harmony.
The Executive Board in its meeting approved the award of consultancy contract for the design of Larkana-Naudero-Lakhi, Larkana city, Larkana ring road and Gharo-Keti Bunder road projects for which Rs 500 million had been allocated in PSDP. The board also gave its approval for detailed design of Tarnol Interchange and dualisation of 6.5 km long Sukkur Bypass. The meeting was attended by IG Motorway Police, Mohammed Raffat Pasha, Chief NTRC, Kazim Idress, Joint Secretary Communication, Khalid Ahmed Khan and Altaf Asghar and senior officers from NHA.
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