LAHORE: The Oil Tankers Owners Association has demanded increasing axle load limits for various transport vehicles to save the transport sector from collapse.

A meeting of the association held with Rehmat Khan Wardag in the chair discussed the challenges being faced by goods transport owners because of certain axle load limits.

Later, talking to the media, Wardag urged the federal and provincial governments to convene meetings with transporters, carriage contractors, business people, and industrialists to formulate a solution to eliminate vehicle overloading.

Proposing allowing 22-wheeler oil tankers to carry 50,000 litres, he demanded that the National Highway Authority and Motorway Police standardise weight limits: 75 tonnes for 22-wheelers, 65 tonnes for 18-wheelers, and 45 tonnes for 10-wheelers (all weights including the vehicle). He called for a strict five-year agreement on these limits, with no exceptions for overloaded vehicles. He suggested that after the agreement, any excess weight should be confiscated, and both the vehicle owner and owner of the goods should be fined.

Wardag criticised the current practice where the NHA seems to treat overloading fines as a revenue source rather than a deterrent. He highlighted that overloaded vehicles are fined approximately Rs10,000 at each weigh station on the motorway but are then allowed to continue their journey with the same excess load from Karachi to Peshawar.

He called for a meeting including representatives from industry, Ogra, NHA, Motorway Police, goods transporters, oil tanker associations, and other relevant stakeholders with the agenda to implement Ogra laws and the National Highway Ordinance 2000, aiming for a consensus-based resolution and prompt notification to address the issue.

He emphasised that overloading damages national highways, costing billions annually in repairs and contributes to serious accidents. He said the current “confused policy” of fining overloaded vehicles but allowing them to continue their journey makes a mockery of the law.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2025