Toll Plaza Pvt. Ltd.

Our media houses by their innate nature always highlight the reaction. They forget the genesis of a problem. Let us take the latest real life case study to prove our point. Toll plazas have become a preferred business vehicle for minting illegal money in least possible time and in the safest possible way. If some reports were to be believed than the Pune-Ahmednagar highway was upgraded by the government with a budget of 100 crores. And the modus operandi of our government is that they make/upgrade the road and sell it to the toll Sharks which can be seen operating under different names like UP toll plaza ltd, Eastern toll ways ltd etc.

Initially these companies will agree on ‘modest’ profits of 20-24 crores. The government gives them rights to collect toll for say a period of 10 years in the Pune-Ahmednagar highway case. In return the government recovers their cost which was 100 crores and says some 20 more crores adjusted for inflation.

Now let us do some math:

They assumed a maximum of 10 lacs collection per day (In fact it is 13-16 lacs). In 1 year it will be

1000000*30*12 = 360000000 or 36 crores

In 10 years it will be 360 crores. (We are not assuming any increase in traffic density)

And it does not end here.

The insatiable greed for riches among the pseudo literate toll owners is so high they start to make things real dirty. 

Toll is collected based on the expected vehicle density. Initially the toll agreed is based upon the vehicle density which is not fixed and can be calculated at a future point on the discretion of toll owners.

Suppose vehicle density decided was 25000 vehicles per day. Suddenly they will start showing the density as less than 10000 per day. This argument alone is enough for them to get the toll collection extension from 10 years to 30 years with inflation adjusted toll prices going north every year. For 30 years this collection will in fact cost (calculated at 15 lacs collection per day): 1500000*30*12*30 = 1620 crores

With hikes in tolls every now and then this will easily cross 2000 crores

So with investment of 120-140 crores the returns are humongous at

2000-120/120 * 100 = 1567 %.

Can you think of a better business plan than this one?

The numbers are just speculative and may be different from actual figures. There is no source available to verify that what was the total expenditure? What percent was funded by the government? What was the state’s contribution? Is the vehicle density figure correct? Is the eternal tax collection justified? Are we not paying double? Where the money from toll collection is going?

There is a great need of urgency from the citizen of India to unravel this mystical business. If everything is in order then both the government and the toll companies should not shy away in making their record books public.

The burden of this corrupt business is borne by the taxpayer. We all are tired of this but barring few NGO’s no one has stand up against these powerful toll companies. In most of the toll plazas they have employed the rotting, good for nothing and anti social minds from the 2^nd, 3 tier cities and also from some villages as toll plaza staff. With absolute zero training for customer service, these people create all sorts of havoc for the vehicle owners. They slang, intimidate and humiliate even the senior citizens and women passengers. They are trained for just exploiting money out of the pocket of the vehicle owner. They won’t allow slightest of the deviation in their collection plan when ironically they are allegedly doing all sort of scams as discussed above.

There might be very small percentage of good employees also but largely this whole toll collection company idea is a corruption juggernaut.

There is a high probability that the government has a hand in glove with them. Other wise why no action been taken against these errant companies which continue to hoodwink the taxpayers by these perennial tax collection regimes?

This ill practice is throughout the country, but neither the center nor any political party has spoken against it till now.

One political party has tried to reign in these toll plazas by asking people not to pay any more taxes on Mumbai-Pune expressway as well as to nearby toll plazas. Something grossly wrong was happening and MNS has tried to put an end to it. Its chief has even said that they will take the matter to the court. We should all appreciate the efforts this party in these directions and should make the use of every opportunity to highlight this on a national level so that this agitation against the evil permeates to the other toll plazas across the country as well.

For the information of the reader, it is the responsibility of the center to provide funds for the building Highways and roads. States also rope in to develop the center funded projects. We have already paid for those funds in the form of taxes. So why shall we pay these unreasonable toll taxes to warm the pockets of these selfish and greedy toll companies and their allies?