ISLAMABAD: Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan directed the National Highway Authority (NHA) to work with foreign experts to improve road engineering and highway design in a meeting on Wednesday.

The meeting, chaired by Aleem, reviewed the NHA’s ongoing and proposed projects, revenue enhancement, road safety and developmental programmes.

The minister directed NHA officials to ensure road safety through improved engineering in the construction of new highways. He stressed that the protection of human lives must remain the top priority.

He expressed reservations about the design of the M-4 and other highways, saying that Pakistan’s roads should be green, safe, comfortable, and designed according to modern international standards.

To this end, he directed the NHA to engage foreign experts for improved road engineering and better highway design, noting that the authority’s engineering staff should adopt international best practices to develop motorways that were safer and more comfortable for motorists.

During the high-level meeting, Aleem said that the NHA had successfully achieved the revenue enhancement target set two years ago. He affirmed that going forward, the NHA would undertake the construction of new roads from the revenue generated from existing revenue streams.

Aleem also informed the meeting that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif would inaugurate major road projects in the coming months, including the Lodhran–Multan Expressway, the Peshawar Northern Bypass and the expansion of the Pindi Bhattian–Faisalabad Motorway.

He said that work on the Sialkot–Kharian Motorway was progressing rapidly, while construction work had begun on the Karachi–Quetta–Chaman Pakistan Expressway (N-25).

Expressing concern over the poor condition of the Lahore–Gujranwala GT Road, he directed the NHA authorities to take immediate measures to improve the condition of the road and provide relief to travellers.

The federal minister was also briefed on the availability of funds for the M-6 Motorway, ongoing projects under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and NHA projects underway across all four provinces.

The meeting was informed that the NHA manages only 3.13 per cent of the country’s road network, yet more than 80pc of the country’s traffic moves on this network. It was also told that the authority would soon give PM Shehbaz a detailed presentation on its performance over the past two and a half years.

The federal secretary for communications, Ali Sher Mahsud, and NHA Chairman Sheheryar Sultan both briefed the meeting on the progress of ongoing and proposed projects.

It was decided during the meeting to contact the federal government to provide Rs108 billion in funding for NHA projects in Balochistan.

In February this year, the NHA was reported as the “largest loss-maker” for the government, operating on a “structural deficit model and reliant on budgetary support”, according to the Annual Aggregate Report on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by the Central Monitoring Unit (CMU) of the Ministry of Finance for the year ended June 30, 2025, with accumulated losses of Rs2.074 trillion.