Why Raj Thackeray's battle against toll nakas is legitimate

Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has been kicking up a fuss and blocking the collection of tolls at Maharashtra’s various nakas. Reason: the state’s lack of transparency on how and why it continues to collect tolls long after costs may have been recovered. He’s bang on. The world over, tolls are collected only till costs are recovered on a road or freeway project. After that, they end — or the rates drop to levels that are needed only for maintenance and repairs. If they don’t end, it is a form of road tax unrelated to a specific project. In India, and Maharashtra in particular, tolls are being levied as a permanent measure for collecting revenues which may or may not go towards road-building. In fact, in many places, they aren’t even tolls; they are entry and exit taxes. [caption id=“attachment_390837” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Police personnel stand guard near the toll booths during an agitation by MNS in Mumbai on Tuesday. Shashank Parade/PTI[/caption] For example, at the five entry points to Mumbai — Vashi, Airoli, Mulund, Dahisar and LBS Marg — the tolls (Rs 30 one-way) are collected without any connection to any particular project. These tolls were initially imposed in the late 1990s to finance the building of several flyovers in Mumbai and Thane, but no Mumbaikar pays any toll as long as he does not cross the toll gates. In short, the toll is paid by occasional users who come to Mumbai, and not regular users in Mumbai. Thackeray himself provided an example of the kind of money being collected at toll nakas by stationing MNS workers to count the number of cars and vehicles paying toll. His discovery: on the Mumbai-Pune highway, the daily collection was Rs 1.37 crore, which amounted to Rs 456 crore annually. But the toll collection contract with the private contractor runs to 2027 – by when he would have collected at least Rs 15,000 crore, when the expressway cost just over Rs 2,500 crore to build. Surely, something smells fishy in this toll collection contract. It’s a kind of legalised private loot, in which the state government is partner. In an earlier article , too, we had strongly advocated against this opaque toll policy in Mumbai and elsewhere. Raj Thackeray is right to raise this issue.