To encourage the States to levy congestion tax, the Urban Development Ministry has offered them finance of up to 80 per cent for conducting study for identification of such congested hubs.
The move follows reluctance of the State Governments and civic bodies to impose such a tax in the wake of opposition from the locals, traders as well as local politicians in many States.
“It’s been six months since the directives to look into possibilities of imposing the congestion charges was issued by Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Krishna. It aims to bring down the number of vehicles plying on the road. But most of the States are yet to respond,” said a senior UD official.
He said that the Centre was offering as an incentive to pay as much as 80 per cent of the total cost incurred on conducting the study so that proper survey can be done on various aspects of congestion charges as per city requirement.
“The study would help them to consider adopting congestion charges as a measure to decongest a particular area/CBD, increasing mode share of cycling as well as public transport and increase the mobility of the people besides controlling pollution.”
“There is a need to discourage use of private vehicles in selected core areas,” the official said adding that congestion charges will be deterrent for excessive use of private vehicles.The Ministry has also referred to two case studies from london and Singapore to the State Governments.
“Though new to India, globally congestion charge is not a new concept. Several cities across the globe including Singapore, london, Rome, Stockholm, Milan and Seoul use them to charge private vehicles,” the order says.
However, several cities are yet to show their keenness to impose congestion tax. For instance, after conducting its own study the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh concluded early July that there was no need for imposing the tax in any part of the city.
The Chandigarh Administration had asked the MC to conduct a detailed study on the imposition of congestion tax in Sectors 7, 8, 17, 22, 26 and 35. Under it, every vehicle owner was to be charged a fixed price for entering a particular road or a market area.
Since 2011, Delhi too has been mooting the congestion tax but yet to implement it at the ground level.