CHENNAI: In a measure which benefits road users plying on the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge, popularly known as Pamban bridge, highway authorities have stopped collecting toll charges for vehicles.
Local officials say the toll booth was infact closed by the contractor in the last week of November upon the end of the contracting period. “Since then department officials were collecting the toll themselves mostly from heavy vehicles. However, even that was ended on January 28,” the official said.
This move is a result of a recent decision taken by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), which permitted the state highways department to stop collecting toll fees on the bridge, which connects the mainland to Rameshwaram.
The 2.345-km-long road bridge was inaugurated by late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on October 2, 1988. It is part of National Highway 49 which runs from Kochi (Kerala) to Rameshwaram.
Highway department sources told Express that the demand (for removing the toll) was there for the past few years, primarily from the pilgrims.
“The state government was also keen on it and pressed the National Highway authority of India on the issue. In a official communication issued last month, NHAI accepted our proposal to close the toll,” the source informed. The communication also directed the state highways department, which maintains the stretch, to take action in this regard.
The decision was taken based on the Union road transport ministry’s order of 2015 which specifies that toll must be stopped in roadways, where the project has costed less than Rs 100 crore, or where the cost of construction has already been recovered.