KARACHI: Afghan Transit Trade cargoes are not only choking the Pakistani highways but also resulting in quickened wear and tear of an already not-so-good highways network that would require a lot of money for repair and maintenance works.
Talking to Customs Today, sources said that Pakistan was providing the transit trade facility to land-locked Afghanistan from which it generates no revenue whatsoever. The trucks carrying Afghan Transit Trade are equipped with trackers to monitor the journey throughout the way and to alert authorities in case of unscheduled stopovers, delayed stopovers or not following the prescribed routes from Karachi to border posts of Torkham in Khyber Pakhtwankhwa province and Chaman in Balochistan.
Pakistan is providing the facility under the international laws but the heavy trucks shipping the cargoes are contributing not only to traffic congestion, but also put an extra burden resulting in speeded wear and tear, they added.
Though the sources were talking specifically about the commercial cargoes, the fact is that non-commercial transit trade cargoes to Afghanistan, including NATO and ISAF supplies, food and ration supplies plus the supplies for the NGOs operating in Afghanistan have added to the problem of road congestion and wear and tear of the road infrastructure.
