Toll Plaza: The court has cracked down on the indiscriminate toll charges being levied at toll plazas. The High Court has said that it is not right to collect full toll tax on roads whose construction has not been completed yet. To reduce this …
It will now be easier to reach other pilgrimage places in Jammu and Kashmir including the Mata Vaishno Devi temple. The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has ordered to reduce the toll tax on several highways going to the state and the Delhi-Katra Expressway. The court has said that high toll should not be charged from passengers on roads whose construction work is not complete.
In fact, the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has given a big relief to the pilgrims of Mata Vaishno Devi temple and other travelers coming to the state. The High Court has directed the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to reduce the heavy toll fee being collected in the Union Territory in four months. The court said that it is not legally correct to collect full toll from the passengers on the roads whose construction has not been completed yet.
Only 20% toll will be charged
The court has also said that the fee to be charged at Lakhanpur and Bann toll plazas will be 20% of the rates applicable before 26 January last year until the national highway from Lakhanpur to Udhampur is fully operational. This means that if Rs 100 is being charged at this toll now, then only Rs 20 will be charged from the passengers.
The orders will also be applicable on the expressway.
A division bench of Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice MA Chaudhary passed this order on a public interest petition. In this, a demand was made to exempt the toll collected on the Jammu-Pathankot highway between Lakhanpur and Bann till the completion of the ongoing work on the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway. The highway is being expanded to connect it to the expressway. During this time also, the full toll is being collected from the passengers, while they are facing a lot of inconvenience.
The court reprimanded
The High Court said that the number of toll plazas should not be increased with the sole purpose of earning money from the general public in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The defendants are charging heavy toll fees at Bann toll plaza, while the toll fee is also high at other toll plazas. Thus, not only thousands of crores of rupees are being deposited in the treasury of NHAI (National Highways Authority of India), but private contractors are also making themselves rich by collecting crores of rupees. The court said that since the fee should be reasonable for the general public and should not be a source of revenue generation mechanism. Therefore, the concerned Central Ministry is directed to consider charging ‘reasonable and real’ fees at the toll plaza. An effective decision should be implemented on this within 4 months.
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