State Highways to work on toll levy policy

It will look into possible modes of toll collection and strengthening of roads

The State government is looking at bringing out a comprehensive policy, on the lines of the National Highways Authority of India model, for levying toll.

Sources said select roads maintained by the State highways department would be brought under the toll scheme. The policy will look into the possible modes of toll collection, the rates to be collected and the types of roads that could be strengthened and upgraded.

The department maintains around 9,384 km of highway roads, 11,288 km of major district roads and 36,096 km of other district roads. It already collects tolls for two of its highways — Rajiv Gandhi Salai, popularly known as OMR which is inside city limits, and the ECR to Puducherry route — through the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company (TNRDC).

The TNRDC was set up with the mandate of developing initiatives in the road sector by catalysing private sector resources and investment under public-private partnership mode.

A former engineer of the Highways said tolling would be possible if roads were improved to world-class standards.

“People would not mind paying for good roads. The ECR, for instance, is a beautiful road and though it is not a huge six-lane facility, people pay the toll. The Coimbatore L&T By-pass is another example. It is South India’s first road to be built on a build-operate-transfer basis. It was a new formation and earlier belonged to the State highways. It now is a part of National Highway 47. The tolling, which began in 1998, is still running successfully despite the fact that there is an alternate route,” he said.

Another former highways engineer cautioned that levying of toll for select roads had a lot of issues that have to be looked at. “The NHAI, which has over 30 toll plazas in the State, has set huge targets for projects but their implementation has been quite poor. Maintenance of National Highways also leaves much to be desired. The State government can think of other means, like an impact fee, which used to be collected for construction along the IT Corridor,” he said.