40 toll plazas in Tamil Nadu announce fare increase: What you need to know

Road projects are being implemented in Tamil Nadu to connect various cities. Accordingly, a toll fee is collected from vehicles passing through that area as a maintenance fee for the road. Accordingly, the toll fee, which was ₹40 for one load gate, has increased to ₹70. Due to this, one has to pay a minimum of ₹600 to ₹1000 as toll fee to travel from Chennai to Madurai.

In this situation, toll fees are being increased once a year in two phases at toll plazas on national highways across the country, including Tamil Nadu. Accordingly, in the first phase of this year, the toll fees at 40 toll plazas in Tamil Nadu, including Vanagaram, Chengalpattu Paranur, Tindivanam Athur, Soorapattu, and Pattaraiperumbudur, are set to increase from April 1st.

The Vari and Vehicle Drivers Association has strongly condemned this. In a statement released by PMK leader Anbumani, raising the usage fee of national highways and the revenue earned through it without any transparency is neither moral nor fair in any way.

PMK has been continuously insisting that digital boards should be set up to show in real-time how many vehicles pass through each toll plaza in a day and how much money has been collected through them.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, while answering questions from Lok Sabha members on March 22 last year in Parliament, had announced that toll plazas would be reorganized across the country so that there would be only one toll plaza every 60 km. Additional toll plazas will be removed.

With the new toll policy set to be announced in the next week, it would be right to implement the toll fee change after knowing the features included in it; what is the need to release the toll fee announcement even before that? Anbumani has questioned.