E-way drive to get costlier from April 1
Get ready to pay more for your travel on the 93-km Mumbai-Pune Expressway from April 1. The hike will be around 18% of the present rates charged for cars and other light vehicles, trucks, tempos, buses and multi-axle vehicles.
Get ready to pay more for your travel on the 93-km Mumbai-Pune Expressway from April 1. The hike will be around 18% of the present rates charged for cars and other light vehicles, trucks, tempos, buses and multi-axle vehicles.
The toll operator, IRB Infrastructure Developers, plans to utilise this money for improving security systems and infrastructure of the eight-lane expressway.
“The hike is part of the concession agreement. We would use part of the money for improvement and beautification of the expressway,” said Virendra Mhaiskar, chairman and managing director, IRB Infrastructure Developers.
They haven’t yet decided the probable improvements that would be carried out with this money.
The rates were last revised in April 2008. The officials from the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) said that the concession agreement is for a period of 15 years, wherein rates would be revised every three years.
Cars will pay the least — Rs25 more than the current toll of Rs140; multi-axles carrying machineries will pay the highest toll — Rs1,116 for each trip, Rs170 more than the current toll.
Over 12,000 vehicles use the expressway every day, of which 9,000 are cars and remaining are buses, trucks and multi-axles. The expressway was inaugurated on March 1, 2002. This is for the third time that rates have been revised.
The two-way toll for cars on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway will be around Rs400 in 2014 and Rs460 in 2017, after which the 15-year concession period will cede.
Till 2017, the toll operator, IRB Infra, has to recover around Rs2,200 crore spent on the project.
The toll tax rates for Bandra Worli sea link are also likely to be revised from July 1.
The hike was supposed to be implemented once the toll operations were to be handed over to the consortium of Reliance Infra and Hyundai, who bought over the sea link in March 2010.
“We would transfer the rights to collect tolls once they achieve financial closure. Till then, we have given the current toll operator an extension of three months,” said a senior MSRDC official.
Once this transfer happens, the consortium would hike the toll by 15% of the current rate.
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