The Centre has written to Punjab and Haryana Governments to facilitate security at toll plazas following the heavy revenue losses in toll collection due to the ongoing farmers protest that has blocked the plazas leading to losses of about Rs 200 crore in last two months.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) had to pitch in to incur the losses to tune of Rs 1,900 crore to the concessionaries of NHAI due to the Covid pandemic related lockdown across the country.
A senior MoRTH official said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has suffered a revenue loss of about Rs 200 crore so far on account of farmers’ protest at toll plazas in Punjab and Haryana since October 1. The protesting farmers are not allowing toll collection.
The Central road-making agency has written twice to the Punjab Government over the blockages at toll plazas.
Several groups of farmers’ have been protesting against the new Central laws on farm sectors and have been demanding these legislations be repealed. Farmers had also resorted to “rail roko” agitation earlier. The losses due to this protest have ranged to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore on various stakeholders including industries.
Earlier the NHAI reportedly suffered revenue losses of Rs 1,822 crore due to suspension of toll collection on national highways during the 40-day lockdown, as per ICRA rating agency. While revenue loss for the NHAI operated toll plazas is estimated at Rs 821 crore, while the compensation to BOT Concessionaires under force majeure (political) event has been estimated at Rs 1,001 crore, as per ICRA. Centre had suspended tolling at NHs following the pandemic.
“The total estimated loss to NHAI due to lockdown is likely to be Rs 1,822 crore. With goods traffic (both inter and intrastate) allowed to ply from April 20, 2020, onwards, in case if the toll suspension is revoked with effect from April 20, the loss could reduce to Rs 1,181 crore,” the statement said.
There are around 570 operational toll plazas on the NHs across the country which includes both public-funded (under NHAI) and projects under build-operate-transfer (BOT) (Toll) and toll-operate-transfer (TOT) mode. For the BOT Toll and TOT projects, under force majeure (political) event, the revenue loss is compensated in the form of extension in concession period.
In addition, 100 per cent of operations and maintenance (O&M) and interest costs are reimbursed for the BOT Toll projects for the affected period and this amounted to 50-55 per cent of loss of revenue incurred by these projects.
Whereas for projects which are public-funded (currently being tolled by the NHAI through toll contractors), the suspension would result in a direct revenue loss for the NHAI.
The ICRA also recalled that during de-monetisation in November 2016, the 24-day period toll suspension NHAI offered compensation to the toll road SPVs under force majeure political clauses and incurred loss in the range of Rs 650-700 crore.
The NHAI has now made mandatory electronic toll collection across India on its over 500 toll plazas while doubling toll charges from the vehicles entering FASTag lanes without the tag. In order to give prime importance to existing FASTag users, dissuade defaulters and further encourage adoption of FASTags by national highway commuters, vehicles without FASTags entering the FASTag lane are being charged double the toll fee, and last month over Rs 20 crore were collected from 20 lakh vehicles encroaching FASTag lanes across India.