BENGALURU: While the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has announced FASTag annual toll passes at Rs 3,000 for private vehicles, commercial transporters have demanded that similar offers also be extended to commercial vehicles (CV), which include cabs, maxi cabs, trucks and private buses.
With the prepaid annual passes, private cars and vans can avail 200 single trips a year across all National Highways and National Expressways, for a fixed fee of Rs 3,000. With the new initiative rolling out on August 15, CV unions have demanded that Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari introduce a scheme for them as well.
Karnataka State Travel Operators Association (KSTOA) president Radhakrishna Holla said more than the private vehicles, the need for concessional annual toll passes is high for commercial vehicles.
“Not all private owners use their vehicles regularly. They use them occasionally and the scheme may benefit regular long-distance highway travellers. However, everyday, buses and trucks approximately use over 600 km of National Highways, crossing multiple tolls,” he said. One of the main intentions of introducing the annual pass is to deliver substantial cost savings for private users and reduce congestion at toll plazas.
Stating that KSTOA has written to Gadkari with the demand to extend toll concession benefit to commercial vehicles, Holla said, “Taxi drivers, maxi cab operators, and public transport service providers use highways daily and repeatedly. Even a small taxi driver pays a toll of Rs 30,000-40,000 annually. Imagine the amount of tolls the buses and trucks pay! Such concessional toll packages are needed for commercial vehicle operators.”
He argued that the daily toll charges is a major reason for increase in operational costs of public transport, whose cost is ultimately passed on to the people. Federation of Karnataka State Private Transport Associations president Nataraj Sharma said, “Extending the benefit of toll concession to white-board vehicles alone is grave injustice to private transport operators.”
“A stage carriage bus pays Rs 15,000 monthly. For one trip by private bus from Bengaluru to Mumbai, we pay Rs 14,700 as toll. For Bengaluru to Ahmedabad, we pay Rs 19,500,” Sharma said, batting for a monthly pass for commercial vehicles at Rs 5,000, offering unlimited toll passing.
All India Motor Transport Congress national president Harish Sabharwal said they have been repeatedly requesting the Centre to reduce toll.