Nitin Gadkari’s advice to highway agencies: ‘Shouldn’t charge toll if roads are not…’

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday asserted that highway agencies should not charge tolls for poor-quality roads. “If you don't provide good quality service, you should not charge a toll,” the BJP leader said at a global workshop on satellite-based tolling, which will be implemented over 5,000 km this financial year.

“We are in a hurry to start tolling to collect user fees and protect our interest. You should collect the user fee where you provide the best quality road. If you collect toll on roads with potholes, mud, then there will be a backlash from people,” the road and transport minister said as quoted by PTI.

The state-owned NHAI intends to introduce a GNSS-based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system within the current FASTag framework, initially adopting a hybrid approach that will simultaneously utilize both RFID-based ETC and GNSS-based ETC.

NHAI plans to implement this system first on commercial vehicles and then on private vehicles, considering scalability and privacy concerns. The highway authority has also suggested incorporating driver behaviour analysis and backend data analysis to detect fraud.

"With GNSS, the payment modes might be converted from prepaid to postpaid. Banks and financial institutions might be able to provide faster credits based on travel plans," NHAI said.

On Tuesday, Gadkari said the construction of highways under the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) could be made flexible and market-driven to ensure completion. “I believe that infrastructure should be developed by the contractors.”

Under HAM, the government provides around 40 per cent of the project cost and the contractor the remaining. "Why should the government always provide 40 per cent even if the contractor is willing to invest more than 60 per cent of the project? What is needed is completion, and the proposals should be market-driven," he asked.

The implementation of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based electronic toll collection is expected to increase India's total toll collection by at least ₹10,000 crore, Gadkari added.

In 2023-24, India's total toll collection reached ₹64,809.86 crore, marking a 35 per cent increase from the previous year and exceeding government and industry estimates due to a surge in commercial traffic.

(With PTI inputs)