The federal government has launched National Highways improvement programme with an objective to provide world class road infrastructure. Under this programme the National Highway Authority is working on rebuilding, resurfacing, upgrading and improvement of 2700-kilometer road network which would be completed at a cost of over Rs 33 billion.
According to a report, the objective of the programme is to achieve a sustainable delivery of productive and efficient national highway system which can help lowering transport cost and contribute to the growth of national economy. The World Bank has committed to provide over 15 billion rupees assistance while National Highway Authority will provide over 18 billion rupees from its own resources to complete the programme.
Major focus of this programme is to rehabilitate and improve the existing Karachi-Peshawar National Highway, which carries 65 percent of country's goods and passenger traffic and acting as main economic life-line which cater about 80 percent of the country's economic activities. It is expected that this project would be completed by the end of next year.
As part of this programme special projects of urban development are also being undertaken which include construction of service roads to segregate local traffic, pedestrians, crossing, improvement of road safety through fencing of carriage way and provision of bus-stops and waiting areas.