The state government on Thursday indicated that it is planning to waive off toll for small vehicles at Mumbai-Pune Express Highway and all entry points to Mumbai. Eknath Shinde, PWD minister (public undertaking), told the state Legislative Council said that waiving off toll for small vehicles at Mumbai entry points and express highway would cause a loss of Rs 250 crore to the state exchequer. “However, we are still thinking positively towards waiving off toll to provide relief to people,” said the minister.
The committee appointed to study waiving off of toll for small vehicles at five of the toll nakas in Mumbai and the Mumbai-Pune Express Highway has submitted its report to the government, which would scrutinise its administrative, financial and legal aspects before taking the final decision, Mr Shinde added.
The issue was raised by Congress legislator Sanjay Dutt, who alleged that the state government was delaying its promise of waiving off toll for small vehicles in order to benefit the contractors. In his reply, Mr Shinde said that the decision of toll waiver would be taken only by taking into consideration people’s benefit. No favour would be shown to contractors under any circumstances, he said.
Also, to arrest the rising number of accidents on the Mumbai-Pune Express Highway, the state government has decided to implement intelligent traffic management system (ITMS). In addition to this, measures would also be taken to curb rash driving on the express highway, said Mr Shinde.
In ITMS, systems like speed monitoring, lane cutting control, automatic vehicle number detection and night vision would be installed, which would enable strict action against offenders in cases of speeding, lane cutting and drunk-driving cases.
