ISLAMABAD, Feb 3: The government has decided to formulate a new national transport policy to develop a modern and an efficient transport sector with the help of national and international experts.
Sources told Dawn here on Wednesday that the policy would be finalized through a consultative process based on the transport demand of the sub-sectors, infrastructure shortfalls, resource requirement and constraints, governance aspects and institutional capacity.
The purpose of the policy is to make the transport sector play an effective role in the economic development of the country and to help achieve the goal of more than six per cent growth in the GDP.
The new policy would deal with key issues in the transport sector. The scope of the work includes an evaluation of the demand for different modes of transport. Development patterns of freight and passenger traffic in Pakistan through a better a forecast will considered before finalizing the new policy.
Sources said that resource requirements and constraints would be analyzed in detail and an estimate of the cost of maintaining current infrastructure for all modes of transport would be made.
The factors to be analyzed in the category of 'sector governance issues' will include comparing efficiency and productivity of transport sector service providers and the cost at which these services are to be provided to consumers with that obtaining in other developing countries.
Another factor for analysis concerns legal and regulatory framework governing freight transportation, public transportation and ancillary services and their effectiveness in creating a pool of efficient transport services.
Analysis of institutional capacity in the transport sector would also be done for achieving efficiency and effectiveness in generating and using revenue earned by the transport sector as well as allocations made by the government.
Sources said that transport sector was one of the most important sectors in the economy accounting for about 10 per cent of the GDP and about 20-25 per cent of the annual Public Sector Development Programme.
An efficient transport network is regarded as a pre-requisite for socio-economic development. A responsive transport system was said to be needed to sustain and enhance economic growth and improving the quality of life of the people.
The current institutional structure for provision of transport services is highly fragmented, characterized by various agencies which lack coordination among them. "There is a consensus among the stakeholders that an integrated transport policy is critical for overseeing development of a transport sector for the 21st century," a source said.
