Your daily ride is likely to cheaper as Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari plans to scrap as many as 125 toll plazas throughout the country by the end of February 2015. Gadkari said that 74 such projects have already been identified 61 have already been shut down. However, to cope up with the financial losses that the government will incur after the closure of these toll plazas, the road ministry has proposed raising the cess on petrol and diesel. The news might not be as joyful for prospective car buyers as the road ministry has also proposed implementing an additional 2 percent surcharge on new vehicles.
Other measures include introduction of electronic toll collection system through which the road ministry hopes to save Rs 88,000 crore and, moreover, cut waiting time at toll plazas by a great margin. A Transport Corporation of India & IIM-Kolkata study said, “Rs 60,000 crore was lost on account of various delays at check posts and electronic toll collection (ETC) could save Rs 88,000 crore.”
Road ministry was planning to eliminate toll on private vehicles which form a very minuscule part of the total toll collected. A report suggests that in 2013, passenger and non-commercial vehicles contributed Rs 1,600 crores to the total toll revenue of Rs 11,400 crore.
What do you think about the road ministry’s proposal of scraping 125 toll plazas and hiking petrol/diesel cess along with surcharged on new vehicles? Share your thoughts and opinions with us through the comments section below.
With inputs from PTI