NEW DELHI: The two proposals of road transport ministry to bring relief to lakhs of commuters from shelling out high toll on national highways and expressways — no user fee on narrower NHs that are two-and-half lanes and option of annual pass costing around Rs 3,000 for unlimited travel for cars — are now under the finance ministry’s consideration.
Sources said the proposals have been approved by the road transport ministry and sent to the expenditure department of the finance ministry since it involves some revenue loss. While annual passes would cause some loss to toll revenue, stopping user fee collection on narrower highways won’t have any impact, they added.
Though earlier road transport minister Nitin Gadkari had spoken about the plan to offer the option of annual and lifetime pass for private vehicles, the ministry zeroed down on the monthly pass, considering high probability of its acceptance among vehicle owners. The minister has been making statements of extending some “big relief” for highway commuters in the near future and has also claimed that with this they won’t have any complaints.
Sources said the proposal of no tolls on two-and-half lanes or two-lane with paved shoulders was mooted by the minister as a review meeting and had asked officials to look into this. The user fee on such roads is 64% less than the toll payable on highways that are four-lane and more. TOI has learnt that there are less than 50 toll plazas on such stretches and barring a few all are public funded roads, meaning the toll is collected by govt’s own agencies.
“In most cases, the toll generated is less than the expenses incurred. So, it isn’t a bad proposition to do away with tolling on these stretches. The only issue is highways with four lanes and more, and expressways. There are a significant number of private players collecting toll and govt has to compensate for the loss they may incur due to annual passes,” said a source.
Data show that out of the total toll revenue of Rs 61,000 crore of 2024-25, private cars had a share of around 20-21%. and the large chunk of 79-80% fee comes from commercial and heavy vehicles.