RAIPUR: The Bangalore First Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has pulled up the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and JAS Toll Road Company Limited for collecting Rs 5 more than the fee fixed for the journey on a stretch of National Highway 4, between Bengaluru and Tumakuru.
The commission directed NHAI and the toll company to pay Rs 10, which was deducted in excess for a two-way journey crossing the toll plazas, to the complainant. The Commission also directed them to pay a compensation of Rs 5,000 and Rs 3,000 as litigation costs to complainant MB Santhosh Kumar, a resident of Gandhi Nagar in the city, for causing him mental agony and deficiency in service.
The commission, comprising president B Narayanappa and members N Jyothi and SM Sharavathi, said, “While FASTag ensures automatic toll charges, issues with the system and the process at the toll plazas result in deduction of more than the applicable charges. The dispute arises due to a delay in receiving transaction SMS. There will be problems when a new technology is adopted. The consumer doesn’t expect perfection.”
The commission said technologies like FASTag will help reduce corruption and ensure easy and fast service to motorists. The motorists expect that the authorities concerned will acknowledge their problems and solve them at the earliest. Therefore, the ministry concerned should inform on its website about the measures taken to rectify the errors.
The complainant was forced to run from pillar to post to get the mistake rectified because of the inaction of NHAI and the toll company, the commission said.
The NHAI and the toll company have been only permitted to collect a fixed toll fee of Rs 35 for crossing both toll plazas. Instead, they collected Rs 40 from the complainant per journey on February 20, 2020, and May 16, 2020.
The complainant contended that lakhs of vehicles cross both toll plazas daily and NHAI and the toll company might have collected excess fees amounting to huge sums of money from the motorists, thinking that nobody would take up the matter with the authorities concerned.