CHANDIGARH: Condemning the arbitrary establishment of Toll plazas on the National Highways passing through Haryana, senior INLD leader and Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala has demanded that the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) adhere to its toll policy in letter and spirit and accordingly remove those toll barriers that are in violation of its own policy.

The parliamentarian pointed out that the stated policy of the NHAI is not to establish a two toll barriers within 60 km of each other. However, in Haryana this policy was being observed more in breach. Citing the example of the strategically important highway connecting Amritsar with the Delhi, via Sirsa and Rohtak, and the rest of the country, he said that in a distance of around 250 km, there were six toll barriers at Dabwali, Moriwala, Chikanwas, Mayyad, Sampla and Madina. There are other examples of similar nature elsewhere too, notably on the NH-1 where between Gharaunda and Murthal, a distance of 60 km has three toll barriers at Gharaunda, Panipat and Murthal.

In addition to these violations, there are examples of toll barriers within the 10 km of the municipal limits of a committee or corporation in violation of NHAI’s own directions of not establishing them within those limits, with the most flagrant one being at Narwana. In a case of deception, the NHAI’s notification for the toll barrier at Narwana is notified as being in a village Narwana though it is only 1.5 km of the municipal limits of Narwana. Similarly, the Chandimandir toll in Panchkula falls within the corporation limits of Panchkula and another in Manesar in Gurugram.

Dushyant Chautala pointed out that there are 22 toll plazas in Haryana that take a heavy toll of the road users. With a toll barrier in every district this has made internal travel an ordeal since even commonest of common man traveling in a bus has to shell out more bus fare every day. He lamented that eight new toll barriers have come up in the state during the three year rule of the BJP and that there were 12 more barriers in the offing. Regrettably, there are also examples where road-users are subjected to toll even though the highway construction work is far from being completed.

Dushyant also criticized the Centre for amending rules of Central Motr Vehicles Rules, 1989 and rewrite sub-rule (b) of rule 2 to omit the words “Agricultural tractor is a non-transport vehicle”, thereby bringing the tractors under the category of commercial vehicles. He alleged anti-farmer bias in this decision since it would not only drastically increase the cost of the tractors but also require its registration and bring it under the purview of pollution laws that govern other commercial vehicles. But more than this it would play havoc with the economy of the farmers since they will also have to pay toll whenever they bring their produce to the Mandis that they access after crossing toll barriers or come there for the purchase of fertilizers.