Govt offers new toll category to truckers

NEW DELHI: The Centre gave a fresh proposal for rationalisation of toll tax to truckers on Friday to dissuade them from going on a nation-wide strike from Sunday. The talks, however, remained inconclusive with a final round of discussion slated for Saturday morning.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (Morth) held several rounds of talks with representatives of All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC), an umbrella organisation that claims to represent 70% of truck owners in India. The truckers once again raised four main demands —same toll for three-axle and two-axle trucks, no toll tax in perpetuity on highways where the initial cost of construction has been recovered, only 25% toll tax on empty trucks on their return journey and 50% when a truck is moving within a state.

The ministry has offered to increase toll collection categories to six. The existing five categories are: light motor vehicles like car and jeeps, light commercial vehicles, buses or heavy construction machinery, three to six axle vehicles and oversized vehicles (seven or more axles). The ministry has proposed that a separate category of three-axle trucks be created and charged at a base rate of `2.40 per kilometre. This category would be between two-axle (charged `2.20 per kilometre) and the present three to six-axle category (charged at `3.45 per kilometre). If agreed, this would come as a major relief to three-axle trucks.

The government also proposed that it could think of doing away with the perpetuity clause for toll collection. The new proposal says that in all new projects once the concession period is over and the highway comes back to NHAI, 40% toll would be charged and this money would go towards maintenance. The truckers, however, did not agree to the proposal and the talks remained inconclusive. The ministry plans to refer the rest of the demands for further examination by a committee.

Earlier, Morth had taken the issue of toll tax to the empowered group of ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The ministry wanted to merge the two categories of two-axle and three-axle trucks. As per its own calculations, the decision would have cost the government a whopping Rs 500 crore. Seeing the financial implications, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia expressed serious reservations. Mr Ahluwalia had said clearly that the government should not give in to the “blackmail” by truckers.