Do away with toll plazas; devise new revenue model: Assocham

NEW DELHI: A day after Maharashtra witnessed agitations against toll plazas, industry body Assocham today suggested the government do away with toll collection in this format and devise a new model on the lines of the one operational at airports across the country.

"The model of user charges of the private sector built airports can be somehow examined for the roads as well," Assocham said.

The industry body felt that user resistance gets built more from the inconveniences caused to commuters at the toll plazas rather than paying the user charges.

"More than unwillingness to pay, it is the inconvenience of stopping every 10-20 km and queuing up for toll payment on an average 15 to 20 minutes," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said.

"Thus, there is a case for devising new ways of revenue generation from the PPP highway projects as is evident from increasing resistance to paying tolls at the motorways," he added.

The National Highways Authority of India in consultation with state governments and the Centre should devise new ways to get rid of toll plazas and find alternative ways of revenue generation and sharing in the road projects built under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode, Assocham said.