ISLAMABAD, Feb 23: The National Highway Authority (NHA) will soon start Rs15.11 billion countrywide roads improvement, rehabilitation and maintenance programme. This was said by NHA chairman Maj-Gen Farrukh Javed on Sunday.

"National Highway Improvement Programme (NHIP) will be completed with the cooperation of the World Bank and will span over a period of seven years," he said.

Maj-Gen Javed said the two-segment programme would be completed by 2010 and financed by the World Bank and the income from the toll. "The programme has formally been launched and work on different roads will be kicked off within the next couple of weeks," he said.

Given the break-up, the chairman said over Rs9.2 billion would be spent on rehabilitation and construction of 550km national highways, over Rs2.5 billion on resurfacing and strengthening of 306km roads, about Rs2.6 billion on safety and other components and Rs860.06 million on policy support and institutional development.

"World Bank share in this programme is Rs11.556 billion (76.5 per cent) and the remaining Rs3.548 billion (33.5 per cent) will be NHA's share," he said. He said the World Bank assisted portion of the programme entailed rehabilitation and improvement of about 550km of highways besides resurfacing and strengthening of 306km roads.

This portion of programme, he said, also included traffic engineering improvements at 20 locations including construction of bus-bays, traffic engineering management schemes, afforestation along the project corridors, technical assistance for design, contract administration and construction supervision besides policy support and institutional development.

"Rehabilitation and improvement segment of this programme will be covering 550km roads to be completed in two phases," he said. The first phase includes Hyderabad-Halla, Hala-Chanesay Bridge, Chanesar Bridge-Moro, Tarnol-Chablat and Karachi- Hyderabad Super Highway (M-9), he added.

In phase two, he said Moro-Ranipur, Ubaro-Shaikh Wahan, Mian Channu-Sahiwal, Sahiwal-Okara and Lahore-Gujranwala sections would be rehabilitated and improved.

Under second segment of the programme, the chairman said 306km roads would be resurfaced and strengthened with Gujranwala-Kharian and Nowshera-Peshawar highway in first phase and Mian Channu-Sahiwal-Okara and Kharian-Rawalpindi in the second phase.

Under the toll financed segment, the NHA has initiated rehabilitation schemes, axle load control regime, traffic engineering improvements and urban area development, Mr Javed said.

To a question about damage to roads due to excess axle load, the chairman said overloading by trucks was by far one of the most serious challenges faced by the NHA as it caused immense damage to the road network.

To a question about roads condition, he said out of total road network of 253,000 km across the country, there were only 9,000 km long roads under the NHA's supervision. "But is it not thought-provoking that three per cent (9,000 km) of the total roads network that is under NHA's supervision carry the 80 per cent traffic load and the remaining 245,000km long roads carry only the remaining 20 per cent traffic load," he said. - APP