News Detail

Private vehicles and buses may be exempted from paying toll on highways in their districts if the road transport ministry accepts a proposal currently under consideration that promises to bring significant relief to commuters and ease congestion on highways.

Source: ET

SNP Insights

This proposal may reduce the traffic congession in Toll ways by about 50% but is likely to cause loss to the exchequer by INR 5400 Crore per year till 2019. This may also pose issues in the current PPP projects as well as reduce the interest of Private parties to take up equity in completed projects as project viability is calculated based on traffic projections. But compensating this loss by increasing the toll for commercial vehicles  alone may fetch protests and forgoing this amount by govt may affect govt's contribution towards further road projects.