Motorists using national highways with flyovers, underpasses, viaducts and elevated spans are set to pay lower tolls under a new formula, as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Friday directed all its field offices to start processing toll notifications and reviews under the revised rules.
The move follows the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ July 1 amendment to the National Highway Tolls (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules 2008, which changes how user fees are calculated for stretches of highways that include one or more bridges, tunnels, viaducts or elevated highways.
Under the revised rule, tolls would be calculated by adding 10 times the length of these structures to the length of the remaining highway section, or five times the total length of the highway section, whichever is less. Structures 60 meters or less in length will not be treated separately for this purpose.
The revised formula will apply to stretches of highways containing one or more bridges, tunnels, viaducts or independent elevated highways. The amendment also places a cap on the distance over which tolls are charged by requiring the authorities to certify which of the two stipulated calculations results in the lower permissible length. Earlier, fees for such extensions were generally tied to ten times the length of the structure, a requirement meant to account for higher construction and maintenance costs.
The newspaper notice provides an explanation of how the revised formula works. For example, on a 40 km section of highway with 30 km of structures and 10 km of regular roads, the toll will be calculated along 200 km instead of 310 km because the lower of the two prescribed calculations must be adopted. Likewise, when a 40 km section includes 10 km of structures and 30 km of normal roads, the tollable length will be 130 km instead of 200 km.
“Until now, a stretch of highway that was mostly a bridge or tunnel could see its toll equivalent to 10 times the length of the structure, with no upper limit. The cap now ensures that the toll is always whichever is lower,” said former NHAI official and current president of ITS India Forum Akhilesh Srivastava.
The revised rules will come into effect for existing publicly funded toll plazas from the next scheduled user fee review. For toll plazas managed by concessionaires, the revised formula will be applied after the end of the concession period or the project is returned to the authority, while new operational toll plazas will adopt the formula from the date of commencement of toll collection.
