India's toll collection growth slows sharply in April-June quarter despite Rs 21,547 crore revenue

India's toll collection in the April-June quarter of 2026-27 rose 4.18% from a year earlier, but the pace of growth slowed sharply as toll transactions declined.

Experts attributed the moderation to a higher base, softer freight movement amid the West Asia conflict and lower inflation-linked toll revisions.

National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) data showed toll collections grew 19.6% in the first quarter of 2025-26, 9.49% in 2024-25, 22.4% in 2023-24 and 72.3% in 2022-23 from the corresponding period a year earlier.


Toll collection in the April-June quarter of 2026-27 stood at Rs 21,547.44 crore, up from Rs 20,681.93 crore a year ago.

The number of toll transactions, however, fell 6.6% to 1,095.09 million in the first quarter from 1,173.29 million in the year-ago period.

Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, senior director and global head, consulting at Crisil Intelligence, said the moderation in toll collection in the first quarter of FY27 reflected normalisation rather than a demand shock.

“Previous years benefited from a favourable base, annual toll revisions and expansion of the tolled highway network. As these effects fade, collections are increasingly tracking underlying traffic growth,” he said.

According to Padmanabhan, while India's domestic economy remains resilient, relatively softer freight movement and uncertainty stemming from the West Asia conflict have tempered commercial traffic growth, resulting in a more moderate increase in toll collections.

Commercial vehicles account for nearly 75% of toll revenue in India, while passenger vehicles contribute the remaining 25%.

“The reduction in toll collections was affected by a large number of factors including reduced WPI inflation in the previous year, reduction in the WPI linkage factor etc,” said Kuljit Singh, partner and national infrastructure leader, EY India.

Toll rates on national highways are revised every April based primarily on changes in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI).

Singh said toll collections were likely to rebound over the coming year.

“All of these factors are already seeing significant reversals, which would lead to a very large increase in toll collections in the coming year,” he said, pointing to about a 10% increase in WPI in July and the restoration of the linkage factor to around 1.64 from 1.56.