ISLAMABAD: Drivers on the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway will pay more starting this weekend, even as a court just blocked a different toll penalty the National Highway Authority tried to impose on the same route.
NHA issued a notification Saturday raising toll rates on the M-2 Motorway by 7 percent. The new rates will stay in effect until April 23, 2027, per-kilometre charges built into the concession agreement NHA holds with Motorway Operations and Rehabilitation Engineering, known as MORE, a subsidiary of the Frontier Works Organisation. FWO handles rehabilitation and modernisation work on the motorway under that agreement.
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Car owners, jeep drivers and taxi operators will now pay Rs1,430 to travel the full route. Wagon drivers face Rs2,390. Coaster operators pay Rs3,350, while buses cost Rs4,770. Truck drivers running 2- or 3-axle vehicles will pay Rs6,210, and articulated truck operators face the steepest new rate at Rs7,980.
Court Blocks M-Tag Penalty
The timing raises an obvious question. One day earlier, the Islamabad High Court suspended a completely separate NHA notification one that had slapped an extra 50 percent toll surcharge on any vehicle crossing motorways without a working M-Tag or with insufficient balance in its M-Tag account. The court froze that penalty Friday, just hours before NHA pushed through the standard 7 percent hike Saturday.
Sources told Focus Pakistan the sequence highlights a pattern: NHA continues adjusting toll structures through multiple channels simultaneously, even as courts scrutinize some of those changes. The M-Tag surcharge and the general toll hike are legally distinct mechanisms, but both hit the same drivers on the same roads within 24 hours of each other.
NHA Defends Toll Increase
NHA has not commented publicly on whether the IHC‘s suspension of the M-Tag penalty will affect its broader toll strategy going forward. The M-2 corridor remains one of Pakistan’s busiest and most economically significant highways, linking the federal capital directly to Lahore and carrying heavy volumes of both passenger and freight traffic daily.
For commercial operators, the increase compounds existing pressure from fuel costs and vehicle maintenance expenses. Truck and bus operators, who already absorb the highest toll brackets, will feel the 7 percent hike most acutely given the scale of their per-kilometre charges compared to private car owners.
Motorists Face Higher Costs
The IHC’s intervention on the M-Tag surcharge suggests toll policy on Pakistan’s motorway network faces active legal challenge on multiple fronts. Whether that scrutiny extends to the newly announced 7 percent increase remains unclear, since Saturday’s notification addresses a different toll mechanism than the one the court suspended Friday.
Commuters and transport companies planning routes between Islamabad and Lahore should expect the revised rates to apply immediately, given the notification’s Saturday effective date. NHA has offered no indication of a grace period or phased implementation for the new charges.
