Roads forge harmony among provinces: NHA chairman

ISLAMABAD - National Highway Authority (NHA) ChairmanSyed Muhammad Ali Gardezi has said that roads are source of forging inter-provincial harmony and socio-economic uplift. While chairing NHA Executive Board meeting here, Chairman NHA said the authority was endeavoring hard to complete development projects as per schedule. The NHA board meeting reviewed countrywide schemes of the Authority, said a press release on Tuesday. Senior officers from Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission, Ministry of Communications, National Highways and Motorway Police, NESPAK and NHA participated in the meeting. The NHA chief said keeping in view the challenges faced by the country, financial discipline is being observed, due to which highway projects are moving ahead satisfactorily,” the NHA is fully aware about the financial difficulties of the Government and we are trying our level best to reduce load on national exchequer,” he added. He said private sector is being involved in highway building schemes and foreign investment needs to be encouraged. He said Government of Sindh has approved a loan amounting to Rs 2.5 billion for highway projects in Sindh province which will help gear up pace of progress there. The Executive Board also discussed Annual Maintenance Plan of the NHA. It was informed that in 2010, liabilities in maintenance were to Rs 15 billion which now due to financial discipline have been reduced by Rs 7.5 billion.