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MOTORINDIA
l
June 2012
Roads are our national property.
The Government keeps selling roads
to private builders and contractors
who continue to collect toll charges
even after their investment on build-
ing is fully recovered. They also
start charging toll even before work
on the highway begins. The amount
charged is exorbitantly high without
giving any extra facilities to road us-
ers.
The All India Motor Transport
Congress (AIMTC) has often high-
lighted the anomalies in the present
toll policies that mostly favour the
concessionaires at the cost of road
users. The Government has entered
into MCAs with private builders and
offered them 20 or 30 years time-
frame to collect the toll. They also
talk of taking old roads for toll col-
lection. This is sheer commercial
business where income is realized
just after signing the agreement. The
toll charged by the concessionaire
is different from what is fixed by
the Government. MCAs have been
implemented by the Government
for projects under the PPP scheme.
These agreements are unfair as un-
due concessions are given to the
concessionaires. This has proved a
great burden for road users.
The Government is making fre-
quent unilateral changes in the toll
policy with the main objective of
making it a revenue generating
scheme without providing addition-
al benefits to road users. The exces-
sive tolls are making transport op-
eration economically unviable. The
current toll policy is flawed and is
excessively biased in favour of pri-
vate road builders. Toll has indeed
become a bane for the road transport
industry.
Further, the road transport indus-
try is upset over the unilateral hike
of TPP. An expert committee consti-
tuted by AIMTC analyzed the draft
circulated by IRDA and expressed
its views at its meeting with the
IRDA Chairman on March 8, 2011.
Another proposal to abolish third
party pool was circulated, albeit at
the instance of private insurers lob-
by. Without consultation with major
stakeholders, a decision was taken,
resulting in the current hike.
The commercial vehicle segment
will be the worst affected by the
hike. The hike in TP premium is
road transportation
Motor insurance rates were
hiked from April 1, 2012, with
IRDA notifying new rates for
motor third-party premium
ranging from 18 per cent to 23
per cent, apart from the cascad-
ing effect of two per cent hike in
the service tax.