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MCEPL collected 600 cr in 4 years from commuters at Kherki Daula toll, says RTI reply
Gurugram: The Delhi-Gurgaon expressway concessionaire has collected about ₹603 crore from commuters at the Kherki Daula toll plaza in the last four years. However, the concessionaire Millennium City Expressway Private Limited (MCEPL) still owes around ₹1,000 crore to the lenders of the project.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has revealed the information in an RTI reply.
The RTI reply revealed that the concessionaire had collected ₹603.33 crore from November 1, 2015 to October 10, 2019. The reply by Punit Khanna, deputy manager (technical) also said that the expressway was a built-operate-transfer (BOT) project. The NHAI had sent its reply in November last year to an RTI filed by activist Aseem Takyar.
The MCEPL had taken over the toll following an order of the Delhi High Court in 2014, which also directed removal of Sirhaul toll plaza after commuters filed a petition complaining of daily congestion and traffic jams.
The MCEPL is a company owned by a consortium of banks that have financed the construction of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway.
As far as the loan amount owed to the consortium of banks is concerned, the reply said ₹998.44 crore is still owed to five banks that include IDFC Bank, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Oriental bank of Commerce and State Bank of India.
NHAI officials, meanwhile, said that when MCEPL took over operations from the previous operator in 2014, the total liability on the company was around ₹1,100 crore and it had the permission to collect toll from Kherki Daula up to 2023. The Delhi Gurgaon expressway become operational in 2008 and as per the agreement the concession period was fixed at 15 years, they added.
“The concessionaire has the right to collect toll till 2023 as per the agreement and it does not matter how much revenue they have generated. The reason that loan from the banks is still around ₹1,000 crore is that huge amount of the payment made to banks go as interest,” said Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI.
It may be noted that the Kherki Daula toll plaza is expected to be shifted to Panchgaon in Bilaspur in a year, and land for the same has already been identified by the state government. Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar early this week had assured the real estate stakeholders during a pre-budget meeting that this toll would be shifted but it would take one year as the operator had sought time to make this happen. “This shift is going to happen,” he asserted.
There is a strong clamour among the city residents to get the toll shifted as they face congestion and jams daily at the toll plaza. The residents also assert that the concessionaire has already earned more money than it had invested in the project and the toll should be removed. “We want the government agencies to expedite the work of transferring land to NHAI at Pachgaon at the earliest, so that the authority can start the process of shifting. The residents don’t want to suffer more due to the toll,” said Praveen Malik, president, United Association of New Gurugram.
The problem in recent years has been compounded by the fact that over one lakh new residents have shifted to developing sectors and the worst affected are those living beyond Kherki Daula. The residents in these sectors had even decided to vote for only that candidate, who assured them of shifting the toll plaza.