Pakistan orders highway authority to bring in foreign experts for safer road design

Pakistan’s communications minister directed the National Highway Authority to consult foreign experts on road engineering and highway design, citing safety concerns over the layout of several existing motorways.

Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan chaired a review meeting on Wednesday covering the authority’s ongoing and planned projects, revenue growth, road safety and broader development programs. He told officials that human life must remain the top priority in the construction of new highways and instructed the authority to improve engineering standards across future projects.

Aleem voiced specific reservations about the design of the M-4 motorway and other existing highways, saying Pakistan’s roads should be green, safe, comfortable and built according to modern international standards. To meet that goal, he directed the authority to bring in foreign expertise and ensure its own engineering staff adopt international best practices when designing motorways going forward, aiming for roads that are both safer and more comfortable for drivers.

The minister said the authority had met a revenue enhancement target originally set two years ago, and confirmed that future road construction would be funded through revenue generated from the authority’s existing income streams rather than relying solely on additional budgetary support.

Aleem also outlined a series of upcoming projects Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to inaugurate in the coming months, including the Lodhran-Multan Expressway, the Peshawar Northern Bypass and an expansion of the Pindi Bhattian-Faisalabad Motorway. He said work on the Sialkot-Kharian Motorway is progressing quickly, while construction has begun on the Karachi-Quetta-Chaman Pakistan Expressway, also known as N-25. He raised concerns separately about the deteriorating condition of the Lahore-Gujranwala GT Road and directed authority officials to take immediate steps to repair it and ease difficulties for travelers.

Officials briefed the minister on funding available for the M-6 Motorway and on projects currently underway across all four provinces under the Public Sector Development Programme. The meeting was told that while the National Highway Authority manages only about 3.13 percent of Pakistan’s total road network, that limited network carries more than 80 percent of the country’s overall traffic. Officials said the authority would soon present Prime Minister Sharif with a detailed briefing on its performance over the past two and a half years.

Federal Secretary for Communications Ali Sher Mahsud and National Highway Authority Chairman Sheheryar Sultan both briefed attendees on the progress of current and proposed projects. The meeting concluded with a decision to approach the federal government for 108 billion rupees in funding to support the authority’s projects in Balochistan.

The push for improved highway design comes as the National Highway Authority continues grappling with serious financial strain. A report published earlier this year identified the authority as the government’s largest loss making state enterprise, describing it as reliant on a structural deficit model that depends on ongoing budgetary support, according to the Ministry of Finance’s annual aggregate report on state owned enterprises for the year ending June 2025, which recorded accumulated losses of 2.074 trillion rupees.

The emphasis on foreign expertise and international engineering standards reflects broader pressure on Pakistan’s infrastructure agencies to modernize road safety practices even as the authority works to stabilize its finances, with officials framing improved highway design and steady revenue growth as complementary goals rather than competing priorities heading into the country’s next phase of motorway expansion.