Chairman National Highway Authority (NHA) Shahid Ashraf Tarrar on Wednesday directed the concerned officials to ensure safety of NHA's assets and speeding up transfer of land acquired for ongoing highway projects. Approval was also accorded to the promotion process of NHA officers in accordance with the rules laid down in the DPC.
This was stated by Chairman NHA while presiding over NHA Executive Board's meeting, in which he also expressed the resolve to start construction of Karachi-Lahore Motorway soon. The Executive Board Meeting was also attended by IG Motorway Police Zulfiqar Ahmad Cheema, Joint Secretary Budget (Finance Division) Waqar Ahmad, Joint Secretaries Ministry of Communications Sabeeno Sikandar Jalal and Amna Imran Khan, Vice President NESPAK Qazi Iftikhar Ahmad, Member Infrastructures (Planning Commission) Malik Ahmad Khan, Member Planning NHA Raja Nosherwan, Member Finance Shoaib Ahmad Khan, Member Added Projects Iltamish Khan, Secretary NHA Akbar Ali Memon, GM Admn Mohtarma Solat Saqib and other concerned officials.
The Chairman said that efforts are being made to increase NHA's revenue through NHA Toll Plazas, and in future Toll Plazas' contracts will be awarded through open bidding on fiscal-year basis, he stated. He also said that those NHA Toll Plazas that have been under the control of NLC are being retrieved. The Chairman also informed that NHA is also planning to set up a "Road Development Fund", and assured that work on NHA's Housing Society will start soon.
Earlier, GM Revenue Colonel Salman Rasheed (Retd) gave a detailed briefing to the participants through multimedia and said that a total of 11 out of 95 Toll Plazas have been connected to the ETTM System, and that the revenue from NHA Toll Plazas in the year 2012-13 has been Rs 13,536 million; it is estimated to be Rs 17,459 million for the year 2014-15, whereas doubling the toll tax will considerably increase NHA's revenue, he added.
Vice President NESPAK Qazi Iftikhar Ahmad proposed setting up a control room at the NHA Headquarters to closely monitor revenue collection from the Toll Plazas. Member Planning NHA Raja Nosherwan said that before awarding contracts for Toll Plazas, a comprehensive data of the vehicles using the highways and the motorways needs to be obtained so as to make an exact estimate of the revenue from these Toll Plazas.
The Chairman NHA said that NHA projects launched on BOT basis have proved very productive as these projects, after a specific period after completion, are handed over to NHA along with their assets. The Chairman also clarified that strict notice will be taken of a design fault of a project and concerned officials responsible for the fault will be strictly dealt with.-PR
Comments
Comments are closed.