The National Highways Authority (NHA) has projected to generate revenue of Rs 24.8 billion in 2017-18 while recommending annual maintenance plan (AMP 2017-18) amounting to Rs 27.263 billion, it is learnt. The Executive Board of the NHA approved the AMP 2017-18 which met with chairman NHA Shahid Ashraf Tarar in the chair.
As per the documents available with Business Recorder, the NHA has projected to generate Rs 24.8 billion in 2017-18 including Rs 19.94 billion from toll income, Rs 1.932 billion from police fine, Rs 1.7 billion from ROW, Rs 252 million from weight fine income, and Rs 975 million from other sources (interest, sale of tender, NoC etc).
In order to maintain and upkeep the highway network, the NHA requires more funds than available under AMP 2017-18 as per the Highway Development and Management (HDM-4) analysis. However, as per available revenue envelope, AMP for 2017-18 amounting to Rs 27.263 billion has been prepared. In addition to this, funds for previous years AMPs, amounting to Rs 21.269 billion, have been catered under this year AMP.
Documents further revealed that due to delay in procurement of maintenance works of previous years, these contracts could not be completed in time. An amount of Rs 21.269 billion was made available for previous years' works as carry forward amount under this AMP. Furthermore, the NHA has estimated grants of Rs 2.46 billion for the fiscal year 2017-18.
According to the documents, NHA's maintenance funds allocation by the government of Pakistan is not even 5 percent of the actual annual needs, whereas, funds to the tune of at least Rs 60 billion are now required annually to maintain the national highways network. The NHA's maintenance allocation ranges around Rs 21-23 billion per annum only. The maintenance resources remain about 60 percent short of the requirement. Efforts are underway to increase the revenue resource to the tune of Rs 30 billion in next three years and some intervention from other sources will help bring NHA's network to a level where it can be sustained within available resource.
Pakistan's total road network is around 264,401 kilometers which carries over 96 percent of inland freight and 92 percent of passenger traffic. The NHA is custodian of 39 national highways /motorways/ expressways/strategic routes having a total length of 12,131 kilometres. It is 4.6 percent of total national road network ie 264,401 kilometres; however, it carries 80 percent of commercial traffic and N-5, which is bloodline of Pakistan, carries 65 percent of this load in the country.
The total length of NHA network surveyed during the year 2017 is 10,686 kilometres. Out of 10,686 kilometres, about 66.69 percent which is 7126 kilometres are un-rutted. Furthermore, about 30.10 percent which comes to 3,217 kilometres in length having rut depth between 6-12 mm. Severe rutting ie more than 40mm in depth is only 0.46 percent which comes to 49 kilometres. The cracking (structural) analysis for the current year shows that 5,248 kilometres, which is about 49.11 percent of the total surveyed kilometres, is less than 2mm cracks and 1.60 percent which is 171 kilometres is un-cracked.
The second major contributor in pavement performance evaluation is road roughness. As per annual roughness survey carried out, about 55.17 percent of the road network ranges between good to fair. In relation to roughness, it has been observed that (a) 36.82 percent of the network is in good condition (less than 3 IRI); (b) 18.34 percent is in fair condition (3 to 4 IRI); (c) 23.17 percent is in poor condition (4 to 6 IRI); and (d) 21.66 percent is in very poor condition (more than 6 IRI). The present average network roughness is 4.40 IRI (10686 kilometres), which shows decrease this year as compared to previous year's results.
The NHA maintained that it is high time to re-shift the focus on long overlays and localized rehabilitation to keep the road infrastructure at the optimum level of maintenance, operations and service ability in AMP 2017-18 and hence introduction of new rehabilitation, periodic (structural as well as functional) maintenance, highway safety maintenance will be undertaken along with new routine maintenance schemes, global allocation which covers emergency maintenance allocation, special maintenance, preventive maintenance, corridor management, toll plazas & weigh stations, consultancy services, geometrics improvement, bridge / culvert structural maintenance, etc, along with some portion for administrative expenses and promotion of sports and cultural activities will be considered.
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