ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: National Highway Authority Chairman Maj-Gen (retd) Farrukh Javed on Wednesday said that work on the Lowari tunnel project would start in May.

Briefing journalists here about future plans, Mr Javed said that the authority was planning to build a second tunnel along the Kohat tunnel (Pak-Japan Friendship Tunnel) in order to avoid traffic accidents which were more likely to happen due to two-way traffic in the tunnel.

"There are more chances of traffic accidents (in Kohat tunnel) because a tunnel is meant for one-way traffic, but here we have two-way traffic," the NHA chairman said.

When asked that the Japanese government seemed to be less interested in providing loan for the Lowari tunnel project, he said: "The Lowari tunnel would be an indigenous project keeping in view its funding, technical assistance and implementation."

Both the projects - the Lowari and the second tunnel in Kohat - would be implemented by the NHA, he said. Pakistani experts, he said, were as much capable as experts from any other country.

"We should do away with the 'zero-error-syndrome'. Only then will we be able to inculcate confidence among our experts," he said. About collection of toll tax at Kohat tunnel, he said that Rs10 million was collected every month against Rs7 million the authority had estimated during the establishment of the project.

The NHA, he said, would convert the four-lane Karachi-Hyderabad Super Highway into a six-lane road to enable it to bear the ever-burgeoning traffic load. The PC-1 for the 200-kilometre-long Dehero-Sehwan (Sindh) road had already been prepared by the NHA and work on the project would start soon.

Out of the 1,265-kilometre-long Indus Highway, the NHA had so far completed 800 kilometres and the remaining work required another Rs16 billion, he observed.

When asked that the provinces considered the construction of roads by the NHA in their jurisdiction as interference in provincial matters, Mr Javed said: "The NHA has constructed only 9,000 kilometres of roads as compare to the total 260,000-kilometre roads infrastructure in the country."

The NHA was endeavouring to ensure the quality of roads in all the provinces to redress the sense of deprivation felt by the provinces. The chairman seemed to be less satisfied with NHA's maintenance record, saying that Rs45 billion was wasted every year on account of extra fuel consumption and damages done to the roads.

That's why, he added, the NHA collected Rs3.2 billion annually through toll tax whereas its expenditures amounted to Rs7 billion per year, which was a big loss. Things would not improve until people started appreciating value of national assets, he said.