Delhi: Toll collector gives in, agrees to impose environment cess

“We did not want to violate the Supreme Court’s orders and since the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has given a detailed reply to our queries, we have decided to start collecting the ECC from Friday midnight,” said an official at the municipal corporation’s toll tax contractor, SMYR Consortium.

Worried about violating the Supreme Court’s orders on the collection of the environment compensation charge that was to be levied on commercial diesel vehicles (trucks) at Delhi’s borders, the municipal concessionaire has agreed to start collecting the green tax from Friday midnight.

“We did not want to violate the Supreme Court’s orders and since the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has given a detailed reply to our queries, we have decided to start collecting the ECC from Friday midnight,” said an official at the municipal corporation’s toll tax contractor, SMYR Consortium. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

“We did not want to violate the Supreme Court’s orders and since the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has given a detailed reply to our queries, we have decided to start collecting the ECC from Friday midnight,” said an official at the municipal corporation’s toll tax contractor, SMYR Consortium.

The concessionaire was supposed to start collecting the tax from November 1 but failed to do so, citing several problems and lack of clarity in the policy. On Thursday, the concessionaire had indicated that it wanted out from the contract since there were several problems in implementing the orders.

The EPCA, however, had clarified all the points raised by the concessionaire in a meeting held on Wednesday. It will have to charge a tax ranging between `700 and `1,300 from the 124 toll collection points in Delhi.

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation officials said that the move was inevitable.

“The company had to comply with the SC order, especially after the EPCA had answered all their questions,” said Ashish Sood, leader of house, SDMC.

The concessionaire is hopeful on an interim order that can help them avoid the collection.

“We are hoping for an interim order in our favour on November 16,. We want government bodies to take over the collection of this charge since we were brought in only to collect the toll,” said an official at the SMYR Consortium.

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