Chennai: Travelling on highways to western and southern regions in the State will be costlier as the tariffs in 14 toll plazes will be increased upto 10 per cent from 1 September.
Sources said official announcement will be made by the Central government soon. While the tariffs for cars will be hiked upto 10 per cent, heavy vehicles will see hike upto 6 per cent.
The 14 toll plazas are Salem-Ulundurpettai-Mettupatti, Tindivanam-Ulundurpettai, Nallur-Chennai, Tiruchi-Dindigul, Natthankarai-Veeracholapuram, Vikravandi-Tada and Ponnambalampatti.
It is to be noted that in Tamilnadu alone, the toll rates have been increased upto 21 per cent in the last two years making the State one of the costliest to commute.
According to the data provided by the National Highways Authority of India’s website, in case of public funded / annuity / SPVs, government collects the user fee (toll) by engaging the contractors through competitive e-bidding, whereas in private investment / OMT projects, the concessionaire collects the user fee (toll).
Tolls are levied and collected as per applicable fee rules and provisions of the concession agreement.
It further said, in some cases, user fee collection is allowed even when project is only 75 per cent complete.
This helps people to use the completed part of the road and pay only for the 75 per cent length opened for traffic. Concessionaire has right to collect user fee till the completion of concession period allowed under the agreement.
But once the highway is built, fee is to be collected to recover the cost. Once cost is recovered the fee is collected at reduced rate of 40 per cent as the road is to be maintained in good condition for the travellers.