In two years, there will be no toll plazas on the roads, which means that vehicles do not have to stop or slow down at the plazas to make payments. Tolls will be charged to vehicles such as trucks and buses with the use of GPS technology, which will map the distance traveled by these vehicles and the toll amount will be automatically deducted.
While speaking at the Assocham conference here on Thursday, Roads Minister Nitin Gadkari said the ministry is working on a proposal to use the toll based on GPS technology. All new vehicles will come bundled with GPS systems, he added.
It should be noted that the slowing down or stopping of vehicles at toll plazas has decreased with the adoption of Fastags, the RFID-based cashless toll collection method.
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Collection of tolls from national roads in the current fiscal year will hit (a target) 34 billion rupees, Gadkari said. Last year, the toll collection was 24 billion rupees, Gadkari said.
Hill station development
Inviting the industry to participate in infrastructure creation projects, Gadkari added that the government is planning to build a hill station on the Swiss lines near the Zojilla tunnel. Located near Kargil, the 19 km stretch of land can make for a good tourist spot.
“The proposal is to obtain land in Leh and Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir with a long-term lease of 1 rupee. These state governments will have equity in the project. It is being designed by the architect Hafeez Contractor together with Swiss architects. Hotels and resorts can be built in this beautiful stretch, which has good road connectivity, ”said the Minister.
The minister added that profits can be made on infrastructure projects citing the multiple increase in land prices after a road is built. For the highway sector, he asked developers to come together and form a non-bank finance company.
He also said that the Ministry also plans to carry out projects of 500 million rupees to allow the participation of Indian players.
Freeways
Speaking at the IIC conference recently, the Minister said that work on the 1,300 km long Delhi-Mumbai access controlled Greenfield Highway, which is 50% complete, should be completed within the next two years. The Bengaluru-Chennai controlled access expressway is also expected to be completed in the next two years.
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Another project, the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, should be completed in January, reducing the travel time between Delhi and Meerut from more than 4 hours to 45 minutes. Additionally, work on controlled access projects of ₹ 65,000 crore connecting Delhi-Amritsar-Katra and Amritsar-Ajmer will start from next month.
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