Road trips take a toll on drivers

June 17, 2013

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Koride Mahesh, TNN |

HYDERABAD: Venturing out of Hyderabad by road has become a costly proposition. Thanks to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the highways division of the state government handing over the roads to private developers, motorists are now greeted with toll gates at least four to five times on the highways fanning out from the city.

Except the Karimnagar highway, where toll collection is yet to begin, motorists on all other highways, including the Hyderabad-Vijayawada NH 65, Hyderabad-Nagpur NH 44, Hyderabad-Bangalore, Hyderabad-Warangal NH 202 and Miyapur-Sangareddy highway have to pay taxes. Apart from that, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has been collecting toll on the completed stretches of the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and on the road to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad.

The toll being collected on the highways ranges from Rs 1.20 to Rs 2 per kilometre depending on the cost of the project. For example, motorists have to shell out Rs 75 at the toll plaza at Gudur village near Bibinagar for a mere 35 km stretch from Hyderabad to Yadagiri.

The developers are also increasing the toll every six months citing conditions in the agreement. For instance, the Hyderabad-Yadagiri Tollways Pvt Ltd started collecting tax on the NH 202 to Warangal barely six months ago in December 2012. But the developer decided to increase the toll amount from June 11 midnight without even waiting for clearance from the NHAI.

“The hike in toll has not been cleared by the NHAI but the developer decided to increase the tax anyway. We will ask them to wait till it is cleared by the authority,” P Ramesh Reddy, project director of Hyderabad Project Implementation Unit of NHAI, told STOI.

Even APSRTC buses are being subjected to the tax ranging from Rs 4 to Rs 6 per km. With the increasing burden, the corporation recently decided to pass on the toll burden to the passengers. “Both the state and Centre have given up on road development works and have handed them over to private developers under the Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) mode. But the burden is being borne by the general public,” lamented B Giridhar, a software employee and resident of Madhuranagar.

Source-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com