Email
Print
ShareNew Delhi: The new toll policy, which will be finalised by the end of the year, is likely to lower the rates for highway users. The government may also relax the system of annual toll revision introduced in the December 2008 policy.
Rationalising the toll regime has been among the key goals of road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath.
Toll rates were revised upwards last December to make the projects attractive for the bidders who were facing the slowdown heat. Now, both the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the ministry are drawing the contours of the new policy. "The new policy is likely to have a relaxed tolling regime. The basic toll rate issued in December last year may be lowered. We are working on a new formula to achieve that," said a senior NHAI official.
Till December 2008, toll calculations used to be based on movement in the wholesale price-based index (WPI).
Last year's revisions fixed the toll as a sum of 3% of the existing toll and 40% of WPI revision. "We are working towards relaxing the formulae. However, a decision has not yet been taken," said the official.
However, an emerging concern seems to be the fate of the highway contracts that have already been awarded.
NHAI officials admitted that there would be some 'practical problems' for the concessions awarded as per the previous regime. "A major issue is the compensation that will have to be granted to the consortiums that have already been awarded the projects," said the official.
The new toll policy is also likely to tweak the eligibility norms for toll revision depending on the model the project has been developed on.
Earlier, there was a provision of revision every five years in case of public-funded highways. Also, highways developed on the BoT (toll) model would see toll revision every year. However, as per the December 2008 rules, both of them were brought at par (revision every year). "This is also being reviewed as the idea is that annual revision is a burden for the highway users," said the official.
Meanwhile, the ministry has already recommended a slew of other measures like restarting the system of monthly passes for commercial vehicles, increasing the minimum investment in upgrade work to Rs3 crore per km compared with Rs1 crore earlier for the developer to collect toll.
