Commuters unlikely to benefit this time too

A new toll technology cannot become an excuse to ignore old flaws in road quality, contract recovery and commuter rights.

Over the past 18 years, I have examined the toll tax system and identified numerous discrepancies. Globally, tolling is accepted as an efficient way to finance road infrastructure. In India, however, the model operates differently, with persistent concerns over transparency and the integrity of its accounting.

To finance highways across the country, the central government imposed a cess on petrol and diesel in 1999 under the Central Road Fund (CRF). In 2001–02, service tax was introduced to fund road projects, and in the years that followed, toll collection was added for the same purpose. In effect, since 1999, citizens have been paying for roads repeatedly — through fuel cess on petrol and diesel, service tax (now subsumed under GST), and tolls year after year. The cumulative collection through these multiple levies is massive.

Globally, toll roads are intended to improve traffic flow. In India, however, they often do the opposite — becoming bottlenecks because of flawed design, poorly located toll booths, and inefficient methods of collection. By under-reporting the number of vehicles paying toll, concessionaires are able to claim that project costs have not yet been recovered and secure extensions of their toll-collection contracts. As a result, roads whose costs could realistically be recovered within five to seven years are projected as requiring much longer periods. This accounting jugglery is hardly a secret. Government audit departments have repeatedly flagged irregularities in toll collection, traffic census data, passenger car unit calculations, toll formulas, and successive toll hikes.

Burden on Citizens

Toll charges, meant to fund better infrastructure across India, are often squandered instead of being properly utilised. What was once presented as a tool for nation-building has increasingly become a burden on ordinary citizens. The assumption has always been that the money collected goes towards building and maintaining national infrastructure, yet this is rarely visible in either state or central budgets. Meanwhile, commuters continue to endure poor road conditions and the absence of basic roadside amenities — clean toilets, drinking water, round-the-clock patrolling, cranes, ambulances, lighting on flyovers and service roads, and reliable emergency services. Medical assistance in the event of road accidents remains grossly inadequate. Across the country, transport communities have been among the worst affected and have been grappling with these problems for years.

Toll collection began with cash and later moved to cards, UPI, payment apps and FASTag, with each new system bringing its own share of loopholes and irregularities. Now, the government has introduced the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), making it mandatory for motorists to buy a GNSS On-Board Unit (OBU). Under the new model, vehicles will get 20 kilometres of toll-free travel from the toll plaza on toll roads, after which tolls will be charged on a distance basis. The system also allows for additional charges on non-GNSS vehicles. Yet there is still no clarity on the cost of the GNSS OBU. In the open market, its price ranges from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 per unit.

Ground Reality

The government says GNSS-based toll collection will ensure smoother movement on national highways through barrierless, free-flow tolling and a hassle-free travel experience. But similar promises were made when FASTag was rolled out in 2019. The real question is: what is the ground reality on India’s highways today?

India has already crossed 1,000 toll plazas on national highways, with hundreds more on state highways. New toll plazas continue to come up at an alarming pace. The message this sends to ordinary citizens is hard to ignore: every government seems more focused on extracting money from commuters than on guaranteeing quality roads and basic amenities. The common man continues to pay, even when the promised standards are not met. At the same time, several categories remain exempt from paying tolls, often without any clear logic or transparent rationale.

According to replies obtained under the RTI Act from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), these exemptions were granted without any proper study, feasibility assessment, calculation of revenue loss, or Cabinet approval. If so, it raises a serious question: does this arbitrary exemption regime violate the principle of equality under Article 14 of the Constitution?

Why is no government willing to speak about the rights of commuters on toll roads? Why is there no standard operating procedure for traffic jams at toll plazas? Why is there no transparent calculation of the economic loss caused by exemptions granted to select categories? Why are toll contracts not regulated based on the actual capital outlay of each project?

India today has a toll policy, but no independent toll regulatory authority. That is precisely why these are the questions we must now ask.

(The writer is an activist who has been raising voice against unfair toll taxes. Views personal.)