A parliamentary panel on Friday recommended imposing fine on Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for collecting extra toll tax from commuters travelling on Lahore-Islamabad Motorway (M-2). The Senate Standing Committee on Communication which met with Daud Khan Achakzai in the chair was informed by the Chairman National Highway Authority (NHA) Shahid Ashraf Tarar that M-2 has been given to FWO for 20 years on BoT basis. FWO would carry the maintenance work during this period and also generate Rs 206 billion with a share of 43 percent in revenue.
However, chairman of the committee presented proofs in the committee that they were charged Rs 200 while using E-tag installed by NHA from Islamabad to Peshawar, while on return they were charged Rs 230 passing through M-tag installed by the FWO. Chairman NHA informed that inquiry would be carried into the matter and action would be taken against the people involved. However, committee recommended imposing fine on FWO for illegally collecting extra toll tax from commuters.
The committee also expressed annoyance over the absence of FWO officials from the committee meeting while saying that despite the permission taken from the Chairman Senate for calling them into the meeting, FWO officials did not bother to attend the meeting.
Chairman NHA further informed that a plan is under process for commuters to pay their toll tax through mobile and credit card against the current manual system. The authority is working on a project to facilitate commuters/passengers travelling on motorways and highways by introducing a uniform way of payment for the toll tax collection. This will help reducing huge rush at toll plazas and will save their time as well.
Currently NHA has installed E-tag facility on M-1, M-3 and M-4 whereas the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) has installed M-tag on M-2 (Islamabad-Lahore). The committee recommended an inquiry into the matter and also directed for implementing a uniform toll collection system throughout the country. The committee also expressed serious concerns over exorbitant prices at service areas on motorways. Inspector General (IG) National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP) said that in order to curb the tendency of over-loading on national highways, a campaign for Axle Overload Control Regime is going on. On June 29, 2015, special campaign was launched and each beat was asked to impound one overloaded vehicle on every Monday until the unloading/shifting of excess load to another vehicle.
Since July 30, 2015, campaign against overloaded vehicles extended from one day to two days per week ie Monday and Thursday. Thereafter from October 12, 2015 onwards, each beat was asked to stop one overloaded vehicle in every shift. Finally from November 25, 2015 onwards, policy of zero tolerance was adopted and all the zones were directed that such overloaded vehicles should be offloaded in the area of the same beat from where the overloaded vehicles join the highways.
In order to check/verify the exercise against overloaded vehicles, the AIG (Operations) telephonically verifies 2 overloaded vehicles form each zone daily. Whereas, the Zonal Commanders and Sector Commanders telephonically verify two overloaded vehicles of their respective zones and sectors daily, said IG, adding that during this exercise, 14,822 overloaded vehicles were off-loaded. The committee recommended to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that new sanctions be given to NH&MP as there is human resources constraint.