Gandhinagar: Gujarat government today decided to waive toll tax from smaller vehicles including, auto-rickshaws, cars and state transport buses on 12 state highways from August 15.

The decision would put an additional burden of around Rs 150 crore on the state exchequer as the government would now pay it to the concerned contractors.

Daily 86,000 cars will benifit from this decision.

GSRTC bus passengers had to pay Rs 20 crore per year for toll tax. It will come to and end.

Sardar Patel ring road in Ahmedabad is under Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority(AUDA) and therefore it will not come under today’s announcement. Similarly Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat express highway, Ahmedabad-Indore highway, Hazira-Bardoli highway, Rajkot-Junagadh-Porbandar highway, Junagadh-Somnath highway, Bamanbor-Samkhiyali-Kandla road highway are under central government and therefore the new announcement will not be effective on these stretches.

The then Chief Minister Mrs Anandiben Patel had a few days ago announced in Valsad that toll tax would be waived in the state from the coming independence day, however there was no clarity on many points.

Today the Vijay Rupani government took a decision in this regard and decided to implement it on the around a dozen state highways of the state.

 

 

 

The state highways which have been given the toll tax waiver are:

Ahmedabad – Mahesana highway

Vadodara – Halol highway

Ahmedabad – Viramgam – Maliya highway

Halol – Godhra – Shamlaji highway

Rajkot – Jamnagar Vadinar highway

Himmatnagar bypass

Kim – Mandvi road

Bhuj – Nakhatrana highway

Deesa – Pathawada – Gundri highway

Vadodara – Chhayapuri Rail Over Bridge(ROB)

Kapadvanj – Modasa(exemption already in place)

Bagodara- Bamanbor highway

 

It should be mentioned here that in 2013-14 the national total revenue from toll tax was Rs 11,400 crore, out of which Rs 9800 crore was gained from commercial vehicles while just Rs 1600 crore was earned from private vehicles which was relatively very small. As per an estimate by Indian Institute of Management Kolkata and Transport Corporation of India, Rs 88,000 crore fuel is wasted every year due to queues at toll plazas. As private/small non commercial vehicles don’t contribute much to overall toll revenue, they can be exempted and the situation of queues can be eased. Gujarat government has taken a step in this direction.