All You Need to Know About the National Highway Authority, Pakistan

In this Post
–Quick Facts About National Highway Authority
–National Highway Authority History
–National Highway Authority Headquarters
–NHA Duties and Responsibilities
–National Highways and Motorways Police
–National Highway Authority Helpline
–National Highway Authority Website
–Key National Highways in Pakistan
–Key Motorways In Pakistan
–National Highway Authority and CPEC

Update (Jan 14, 2021): With a vision to promote digitization in the country, Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently introduced E-bidding, E-billing and Geographic Information Mapping (GIS) Systems for the National Highway Authority. According to the premier, these technological integrations will help digitally streamline processes, reducing human involvement in terms of awarding contracts for different types of projects, ensuring transparency in the system.

Due to its unique geographic location, Pakistan is one of those South Asian countries that holds tremendous geostrategic importance. Our country hosts one of the largest and most advanced road networks in the world, featuring highways, motorways, and strategic roads, like the ones being upgraded and expanded under the banner of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Projects. Running thousands of miles, these road links connect different cities, districts, and business zones across the national landscape. This expansive network of roads is owned and operated by the National Highway Authority, Pakistan. 

So, to help you find out more about this significant national institution of the country, we have come up with this blog. Here we’ll discuss some interesting information about the National Highway Authority and how it successfully operates the massive national transportation network of Pakistan.

To give you an overview in this regard, we’ll start by taking a look at some quick facts about the National Highway Authority, Pakistan.

Quick Facts About National Highway Authority (NHA)

National Highway Authority History

It seems like the foundation of the National Highway Authority was laid more than four decades back, in 1978, when the Government of Pakistan took a big step and federalised the five important inter-provincial roads and renamed them National Highways. An autonomous institution named as the National Highway Board was also established during the same year to monitor the construction, development, and maintenance activities carried out on these federalised roads by the then provincial highway departments. Finally, in 1991, the Highway Authority of Pakistan Act was passed along with the formation of the National Highway Authority, which is a national institution governed by the Ministry of Communication. It is purposed to look after the administration of all the national highways, expressways, motorways and strategic roads

National Highway Authority Headquarters

According to the National Highway Authority’s website, it owns and manages about 39 national highways/motorways/expressway /strategic routes. This whole network of roads has a total length of around 12,131 km. The National Highway Authority is headquartered in the capital city of Islamabad. Other than that, there are also a few regional offices of NHA found in Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Peshawar, Quetta, and Abbottabad. 

NHA Duties and Responsibilities

Having ‘Friendly Highways’ as its motto, the NHA is one of the key government institutions that has been providing a safe, modern, and efficient national transportation system for decades. Also, to improve the national transportation network of Pakistan, the National Highway Authority is currently working on many infrastructure development projects across the country. These projects aim the upgradation and construction of different multi-lane highways and motorways in Pakistan.

As per the latest press release on the National Highway Authority’s official Facebook page, due to its excellent performance, the authority has retained the ISO-9001:2015 Quality Management System Certificate again in 2020, which was first awarded to it by the International Certification Agency (ICA), back in 2018. Now, let’s take a look at some of the key duties responsibilities of NHA.

• Advise the federal as well as the provincial governments on different matters relating to the construction and upgradation projects for motorways, expressways, strategic roads, and national highways in Pakistan.
• Collect tolls on national highways, expressways, strategic roads and motorways in Pakistan
• Carries out surveys, experiments, case studies, and technical researches in terms of the betterment of the existing national transportation network of Pakistan. Sometimes, the research work is also carried in collaboration with other national and international agencies, depending on its scope.

National Highways and Motorways Police (NH & MP)

Previously known as the Pakistan Motorways Police (PMP), the Pakistan National Highways and Motorways Police (NH & MP) are the national law enforcement forces responsible for the enforcement of safety and traffic laws on the nationwide network of motorways and national highways in Pakistan. The fleet of the National Highways and Motorways Police (NH & MP) is based on thousands of vehicles with SUVs, cars, and heavy motorbikes divisions, which are for patrolling purposes. The system also uses high-speed cameras for enforcing speed limits and a state of the art e-ticketing system, the availability of which is region-specific yet.

National Highway Authority Helpline

In case of any emergencies, passengers travelling through the motorways in Pakistan can easily dial the following three-digit helpline number using their mobile devices to reach out to the National Highways and Motorways Police.

National Highway Authority Helpline: 130

National Highway Authority Website

For more information on the National Highway Authority, you can also visit their official website, which is www.nha.gov.pk.

Key National Highways in Pakistan

Some of the key national highways and strategic roads in Pakistan have been listed as under:

Now, let’s learn about the strategic highways and road links, which are either functional, constructed or upgraded as a part of the CPEC Projects in Pakistan to cater to the loads of moving commercial traffic on a daily basis by taking a look at the table below.

Key Motorways In Pakistan

Some of the important operational, under construction and planned motorways in Pakistan have been mentioned in the table below:

Note: Read this blog if you want to learn more about the above-listed roads and the network of motorways in Pakistan.

National Highway Authority and CPEC

To facilitate China’s Belt Road Initiative and boost the economic development of the country, the National Highway Authority (NHA), in collaboration with the Chinese Authorities are working on some key strategic road in Pakistan including KKH Phase II (Thakot -Havelian Section), Peshawar-Karachi Motorway (Multan-Sukkur Section), Khuzdar-Basima Road N-30, Khuzdar-Basima Road N-Upgradation of D.I.Khan-Zhob Road (from the town of Yarik), and the remaining portion of KKH Thakot-Raikot N35. After the construction and upgradation as a part of the CPEC Projects in Pakistan, most of these roads will have 2-6 lanes and multiple interchanges on them to facilitate regular as well as commercial traffic. These road links will further diversify and modernise the national transportation network of Pakistan, which currently handles around 80% of the commercial traffic of the country.

Here we’ll wrap up our overview of the National Highway Authority, Pakistan. If you have any questions or feedback related to the above-mentioned information, feel free to contact us at blog@zameen.com. We’ll try our best to respond to your emails as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, you may also be interested in reading our blogs on Pakistan Railways network, tunnels facilitating significant road links in the country and the ongoing clean energy projects in Pakistan.

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