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Tired of queuing up, truckers seek early rollout
NEW DELHI: Zakir feels he is lucky. From where his truck is standing on the road, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD’s) toll gate at Badarpur border is visible.
NEW DELHI: Zakir feels he is lucky. From where his truck is standing on the road, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD’s) toll gate at Badarpur border is visible. This is usually not the case.
“I have waited here for three to four hours as well. The queue is at least 2-3 km long,” says Zakir at 12 am on Wednesday. He is transporting 16 tonnes of wheat from Bhopal to Sadar Bazaar .
Over 20,000 trucks enter Delhi in a day through 122 checkpoints on border, where the truck drivers have to pay an entry tax called the octroi, a municipal-level tax.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST), billed as India’s most-ambitious tax reform, will subsume a number of taxes, including the entry tax.
Vinay Roy, who collects the entry tax at the Badarpur toll, however, feels that the government cannot do away with toll gates altogether. He has been on the job for six months and the prospect of losing it does not excite him much.
Though a single tax seems like a good idea to Faridabad resident Dhruv Mohan Jain, he says: “Without toll gates how do you know who is coming or going out. Thought, the time saved from not exchanging receipts will definitely reduce the waiting period.”
A ministry of road transport and highways study said a truck spends nearly 16% of the time at checkpoints. A truck in India covers an average annual distance of only 85,000 km against 150,000 to 200,000 km in advanced nations.
“With GST , checking for sales tax at interstate barriers would not be required. Thus, if the waiting time halves, it would theoretically add 8% additional truck capacity due to efficiency,” Nomura said in a research report.
Zakir, who like the others at the toll plaza has no clue what GST is, says it would be great if the MCD toll booths disappear. While this may happen in other cities, at least in Delhi, Zakir’s queue is not shortening soon.
The Supreme Court has mandated environment compensation charge, or green tax, which commercial vehicles have to pay while entering Delhi. Trucks, after passing the MCD toll, line-up again to pay the green tax.
However, Mahesh Sharma, a supervisor with DEP Toll, the firm contracted to collect the green tax, says this queuing up of trucks is good for the city. “If all the trucks are allowed to enter and exit Delhi freely, there would be a traffic chaos ,” he says. Commercial vehicles can travel in the city at prescribed timings — enrty after 11 pm and exit before 7 am.
But all this is just speculation. Nothing will change soon at the Badarpur toll , or at any of the 121 checkpoints in the capital, as the details of GST — whether to do away with tolls or if the green levy will also subsumed — are yet to be decided.
