Rs 10,000 crore from road toll in 4 years: Nath

The government on Wednesday said that toll collection on national highways will jump five-fold to Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) in next four years, but leakage is still a concern, for which new policy measures will be put in place.

Toll collection is a key instrument for the government to attract private investment, Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath told PTI.

"We have constituted a committee under UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani to work out a electronic toll collection system" for plugging leakages that could be as high as 20 per cent," he said.

The committee is likely to give its report by next month.

"Our estimated toll collection will be close to Rs 10,000 crore per year by the fifth year of UPA-II," he said, adding this was based on bringing an estimated 35,000 km of roads under the operate, maintain and toll system for private investors, he said.

"We are looking at overhauling the toll policy. We are in the process of formulating a policy... a new policy as to how to collect the toll by the OMT process," Nath said.

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The OMT aims at bringing the Indian toll collection system at par with the international tolling standards, he said.

He dismissed suggestions that putting the vast network of highways under the toll system could be a burden on the common man.

"There is a maintenance cost that is paid from the toll... good roads would help save a huge quantity of petrol and diesel... on the contrary, it would help people," he said.

Nath, however, was concerned over the tendency of avoiding the toll, saying that leakage for this or other reasons was a matter of concern. "At present, the leakage in some areas is as high as 20 per cent," he said.

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The National Highways Authority of India could only collect about Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion) in the last two financial years from 8,500 km of toll highways.

"NHAI collected Rs 1,936 crore (Rs 19.36 billion) as toll in 2009-10, while the collection in the previous fiscal stood at Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion)," a senior Road Ministry official said.

India has over 70,000 km of highways and proposes to significantly enhance the network by constructing 20 km of roads every day in the next five years.

At present, the process of crossing toll plazas is time-consuming, as one is required to pay several times to complete a journey on a highway stretch. Besides, different collection systems, including manual systems, lead to revenue leakage.

The Planning Commission and Prime Minister-headed Committee on Infrastructure have been expressing concern over toll leakages estimated at over Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion).