The National Highway Authority (NHA) has repatriated a grade-19 officer of the Pakistan Customs Group, Muhammad Asif Hargan, to his parent department.
The officer, who helped considerably increase the revenue of the Right of Way (ROW) Directorate at NHA, was recalled by the Federal Board of Revenue last month and directed to report back to his parent department. Consequently, the NHA issued his repatriation order on Tuesday.
Hargan joined the road authority as general manager ROW when the directorate had an annual revenue of Rs 497 million. It is on record that he helped boost the revenue through his professional approach and hard work. It is worth mentioning here that the annual revenue of the directorate for fiscal year 2016-17 was Rs 1162.7 million, which increased to Rs 2108.5 million in 2017-18. During the first 10 months of year 2018-19, a huge revenue of Rs 1749 million was collected.
The main source of income at ROW is the annual fee taken from the leaseholders and the NOC granted to private individuals to approach the national highways across the country. There were only 56 NOCs granted by ROW directorate in year 2016, however when he left the directorate there are 121 NOCs issued.
Being custodian of the ROW, Hargan also successfully auctioned service areas on motorways network like Sahianwala on M-4, Jaranwala on M-3, Burhan Rest area on M-1 and many others in a transparent manner to attract more revenue for the authority.
The Sahianwala service area was under the control of a private party on merely Rs 1.92 million annually but now it has been rented on Rs 78 million annually. The Hakla mini service area at M-1 was successfully rented out with an increase of 991 per cent, as the previous rent was Rs 4.62 million and now it is Rs 50.77million annually.
On the other side, Hargan also remained general manager administration in addition to his aforementioned duties for a long period of time where he managed to hold the promotion board for BS-20 and 21 that was due since last one decade. However, being general manager administration, he was considered as a strict officer and the officers and officials of NHA would usually complain about his strict behaviour.
