THE government decision to collect tolls from all vehicles using all national, regional and inter-district highways under the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has sent waves of panic to vehicle owners and users as it will invariably increase the cost of transportation. News reports in the national dailies on Tuesday said the Cabinet on Monday approved the Toll Policy- 2014 only to provoke sharp public criticism of the decision terming it as largely wishful. The policy has recommended realization of tolls even for running bicycles and manually pushed vehicles on the roads to add revenue to the government exchequer. It appears quite regressive but the government tends to justify it by saying it intends to create a new fund for the development of new roads and the maintenance of existing roads and highways. But we fear that it may end up as a countrywide extortion drive under the protection of ruling party leaders and cadres at the local level.
Moreover, past experience suggests that money realized from many existing roads, bridges and such other infrastructures does not properly reach the public exchequer and most of it get lost by way of pilferages in the hand of influential party men who take lease of the toll collection project.
Therefore we hold the view that the government should reconsider the new policy and make it selective for big infrastructures only to be built under public-private partnership or under government’s own funding. Any wholesale toll collection may invite anarchy in roads and highways throughout the country forcing transport costs to go up and making commodities in the market costlier. Moreover, the matter remains vulnerable to further confusion since the Communication Minister on the following day of the breaking of the news said the new toll collection will be applicable only to new roads, highways and to bridges over 200 meters long, not to all. It means that the government itself is still confused and since the Cabinet has approved the policy, the Minister’s verbal clarification is not enough. We ask the government to remove the confusion on the sensitive issue.
News reports said the New Toll Policy-2014 has been
framed by updating the existing Toll Act-1851 to cover the 21,481 km of highways including 3,544 km national, 4,278 km regional and 13,659 km inter-district roads and sub-ways.
Bridges over 200 meters in length also come under it. We hold the view that since the chance of political exploitation of the facility is high, besides lack of transparency and accountability in the use of funds, the entire move needs a thorough review. Many such funds disappeared in the past in widespread corruption and irregularities at the end.
Moreover, people are already paying roads and highway taxes while registering new vehicles and renewing the operating licenses annually. City dwellers are moreover already over-burdened with many utility bills for gas, electricity, water and sewerage system and the new move this time to bring all communication infrastructure under tolls collection appears arbitrary and lacks good reasoning. We call for a review of the move.
