Toll charges: Major relief for commuters on national highways

Highways Minister Gadkari says government working on uniform toll policy, navigation satellite system-based toll collection system

New Delhi: Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said that the Narendra Modi government will soon be announcing a major relief for commuters on the toll that is currently levied on vehicles plying on National Highways.

He said that the government is working on a uniform toll policy to benefit national highway users. “Our research has been completed and the scheme will be revealed soon,” Gadkari told NDTV. The Minister also said the government is working on rolling out a global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-based toll collection system on national highways which will do away with the need for barriers that have been set up for collecting tolls. This would lead to a smoother flow of traffic on national highways.

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Gadkari admitted that there were memes on social media featuring him on toll collections. “Many people troll me on social media. People are a little angry about the toll. All I can say is that the anger about the toll will go away in a few days,” Gadkari told NDTV. India has the second largest road network in the world with its National Highways spanning a total length of 1,46,195 km. The country’s toll collections scaled the Rs 64,809 crore mark in 2023-24, which represents a 35 per cent increase over the previous year.

Gadkari, in his interview to NDTV, also said that the Yamuna would be cleaned up and the Delhi stretch of the river would also be used as a landing strip for seaplanes. He pointed out that this has already been successfully carried out on the Sabarmati in Gujarat. “This was done in Gujarat as well. Sabarmati river was used as a landing strip,” Gadkari said, referring to Prime Minister Modi’s launch of the seaplane service to the Statue of Unity near Kevadiya as part of the regional connectivity project in 2020. The Prime Minister had travelled on the maiden flight of the twin-engine plane. A similar thing will be done for the Yamuna also, he said. “You can take off from Delhi and land in Agra within 13 minutes and return the same day,” the Minister remarked.