MSRDC plans toll tax to finance new roads

MUMBAI: Despite promises made by the BJP in the assembly polls, road toll tax in the state is unlikely to go.

A year after the BJP government came to power, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd (MSRDC) has now decided to enforce toll tax for the implementation of several projects.

For starters, you will continue to shell out road toll tax for the Mumbai-pune Expressway for 15 more years until 2030 instead of the earlier 2019 deadline. The toll will help finance the widening of the expressway to 14 lanes. There will be an 8-km tunnel and two cable-strayed bridges between Khopoli and Sinhgad institute, along with widening of both the expressway and the old highway.

The other projects where you will have to pay toll includes an elevated road on Ghodbunder Road and Wakan-pali-khopoli road widening. MSRDC plans to extend the existing toll on the Ghodbunder Road to generate revenue to build a 4-km elevated road in the area where widening is not possible as there is a forest in the surrounding area.

CM Devendra Fadnavis approved these projects and several others in the cabinet subcommittee on infrastructure last month.

The other projects that got the go-ahead include the Thaneborivili tunnel road, additional bridge on Vashi creek, Mumbai Nagpur highway and elevated road on Bhiwandi-kalyan- Shil Phata route. The financing model for these projects has still not been finalised. The Mumbai-nagpur highway will have toll, but the tax collected is expected to be less as it is not for financing the construction of the project but for its maintenance.

MSRDC officials pointed out that the government will not be able to take up big infrastructure projects if they are not imple mented on Build-operate-transfer (BOT) mode.

“The public works depart ment cannot turn a major share of its budget just for few projects in Mumbai, which run into thou sands of crores, as it has to look after entire road infrastructure across the state. So we will have to rely on funds through either loan or toll to construct these projects,” said a bureaucrat.

Another bureaucrat said that the public anger over toll can be subsided if transparency is brought and toll charging struc ture is rationalised.

In early 2014, there were violent protests against toll collection in the state especially at Kolhapur where toll booths were ransacked and burned. The BJP had in its manifesto promised a toll free Maharashtra; after coming to power it had cancelled tolls on over 60 toll plazas.