Toll booth operators on National Highways across Telangana were a harried lot till on Wednesday afternoon as motorists picked up argument with them for not accepting the demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes.
Caught almost unawares, the motorists travelling on NH-44 stretch from Adilabad to Bengaluru passing through a dozen districts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and NH-65 leading to Vijayawada covering six districts faced inordinate delays as the traffic crawled as the operators refused to accept the old high denomination currency. With motorists insisting on acceptance there was a war of words leading to traffic snarl.
The access-controlled gates would not open until the receipt was generated. No amount of request with the operators yielded any result.
As a result, the toll booths at Shakapur (Mahabubnagar), Raikal (Wanaparthy) and Pullur (Jogulamba Gadwal) on Hyderabad-Bengaluru stretch of NH-44 were choco-a-bloc with vehicles. Usual two-three minute transaction for each vehicle took more than 10 minutes if the driver did not have lower denomination. The long distance truck drivers were worst hit as they had no inkling of the development and were seen pleading with the operators.
Harried toll booth operators said they were at the receiving end as the motorists were in no mood to listen to their plea, .The scene was no different in Nalgonda and Suryapet districts through which NH-65 passes.
Toll waived off
Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday mad an announcement that toll will not be collected across all plazas in the country till November 11 midnight.
Traffic flow, however, remained smooth at the three toll plazas on the NH 44 in Adilabad and Nirmal districts as the toll operators not only accepted the scrapped notes but had sufficient stock of notes and coins in the denomination of Rs. 5, Rs. 10 and Rs. 20 to hand over as change for bigger denomination notes. But there was a severe shortfall of Rs. 50 and Rs. 100 notes at these facilities.
The toll operators stock quite large sums in lower denomination currency as a matter of routine to ensure smooth flow of traffic. They were able even to handover change in excess of Rs. 400 in the denomination of Rs. 10 and 20 for toll paid through a Rs. 500 note.
The operators at Pipparwada and Rolmamda toll plazas in Adilabad and Gamjal in Nirmal districts nevertheless were a worried lot as their stock of smaller denomination notes would not last long. They were apprehensive that traffic flow could suffer on Thursday.
