Even as the Road Ministry is seeking a go-ahead from the Cabinet for suspending toll on all future six-laning projects if they don’t meet the targets, it is also mulling options of reducing the toll tax in the ongoing highway projects, where the road inspectors find a compromise on quality standards by the concessionaires.
“There are a lot of complaints on poor quality of roads. The toll tax should be reduced on proposed highway projects if they are delayed or if there is reduction in quality of roads and also in the available space for the commuters,” said Vijay Chibber, secretary, ministry of roads, transport and highways, at the FICCI Infrastructure Summit here.
“We are proposing that the toll rates should be reduced to offset the degradation in the quality of roads, this is for future contracts, you can build it into the contract agreement,” said Chibber
The ministry is hopeful that this stern measure will ensure that projects that get constructed meet both the quality specifications and timeframe set by the ministry. Failing to meet the deadlines, there would be a provision in the contract itself where by one could reduce the tolling.
Responding to a query on chances of ministry’s participation in Infrastructure Debt Fund to bring in funds to sector, “The extent of contingent liabilities is not very clear, if the arrangements can be put in place without involving NHAI as a co-signatory that would be ideal for us,” said Chibber.
The first USD one billion IDF scheme was launched by the Finance Minister P Chidambaram in June, this year to accelerate and enhance the flow of long term debt in infrastructure projects for funding the government’s ambitious programme of infrastructure development.