ISLAMABAD: Members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Planning and Development on Wednesday held the National Highway Authority (NHA)responsible for an increasing number of accidents due to inadequate road safety arrangements on the Grand Trunk (GT) Road, the country`s main traf fic artery.

They observed that the GT Road had been neglected even though it was a major source of revenue for the NHA.

MNA Abdul Majeed Khan Khanan Khail chaired the committee meeting in which members lashed at the NHA for not ensuring pedestrian bridges and zebra crossings on the GT Road. `[There is] not a single zebra crossing anywhere on the GT Road from Lahore to Rawalpindi,` MNA Chaudhry Jaf far Iqbal observed.

The committee directed the NHA to block all U-turns on GT Road and construct roundabouts as diversions. They also directed the authority to conduct a comprehensive study on accidents on GT Road.

The committee members were astonished to find out that the NHA did not have data regarding the number of people, villages and towns along the GT Road. The NHA also did not have monthly or annual statistics regarding the number of accidents that occurred on the road.

`[There are] 17 districts and a number of towns and villages along the GT Road, but no zebra crossing for pedestrians and only two or three pedestrian bridges, another member of the committee said.

The committee was told that the road was in a far worse condition than the Motorway even though more people trav-elled on it and it earned more than the motorways in the country.

The NHA`s total toll collection, said to be over Rs18 billion, may plummet to around Rs4bn as the authority has awarded contracts and outsourced maintenance of the most revenue generating highways on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. Private firms will collect the toll on these highways for over 20 years.

A source said that the annual maintenance expenditure of the NHA, under which major highways were repaired, was over Rs14bn. If the authority was deprived of Rs14bn out of its total revenue of Rs18bn, how would it maintain the country-wide road network, he questioned.

Once major revenue generating roads were handed over to private firms on BOT, the NHA will not have the funds required for the next 20 years.

The authority will also be unable to construct new roads.

On the other hand, the NHA gets the credit of introducing a new regime under which major highways will be constructed without putting any financial burden on the government.

In recent meetings with the National Assembly and Senate standing committees on communications, a senior NHA officer told parliamentarians about the authority`s plans of awarding road contracts on BOT basis.

Once the new BOT regime is implemented, the roads will be left at the mercy of private contractors who will collect toll tax as returns on their investment in the projects. Under the regime, the contractors will also have authority over the right of way and service areas that house petrol pumps, refreshment centres and restaurants.