Govt planning toll on two-lane highways too

December 17, 2007

NEW DELHI: Driving on national highways is set to get more expensive with the government planning to start tolling even two-lane stretches besides intensifying the fee-collection across the golden quadrilateral (GQ).

Tolling was so far confined to four and six-lane highways and expressways where upgradation work has been completed. But soon, you would be stopping at toll plazas even on incomplete stretches of highways that link the four metros – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

However, a major change in policy is the move to charge users for driving on two-lane highways that form nearly 55% of the national network of 66,590 km. Under the new toll policy, the ministry of road transport and highways intends to levy toll on 20,000 km of highways which are to be taken up for upgradation through the public-private partnership route.

“On a four-lane highway, a car user has to pay about 65 paise per km. Now, the plan is to provide the same quality road surface with paved shoulders on two-lane highways and have proper signages. The cost that we are proposing will be 60% of the four-lane cost (roughly 39 paise per km),” road & highways said secretary Brahm Dutt.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Uncategorized

New path or alleyway

October 12, 2006

Are contractual ‘innovations’ holding up the showpiece highway project?

It continues to be a slow trudge on the fast lane. Barely 35 per cent of the contracts for the North-South East-West corridor (NHDP-II) have been awarded. This lethargy in the awarding of contracts by National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), under the UPA, is predictably bound to lead to long delays in the construction of the highway network across the country.

Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under Investment and Finance