Vice-president of Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS), Akhil Chitre, has alleged that Mumbai Airport operators, GVK, are not following the rules laid down by Airport Authority of India and the police should take some strong steps against them. Mr Chitre on Wednesday met deputy commissioner of police — Zone 8, Virendra Mishra, to complain about the same.
Mr Chitre told The Asian Age, “I met Mr Mishra to oppose the penalty forced by GVK on air passengers for losing their parking tickets and to inform him that GVK is levying toll charges on commercial vehicles entering the road in front of Terminal 2. MNS will agitate in its own style if GVK does not revoke the toll fees. We are also going to file a PIL in the issue.”
Earlier on February 1, this newspaper, in its article titled “New airport parking rule irks passengers” had reported about the toll fees introduced by GVK for private vehicles on the road opposite the terminal building. Now, Mr Chitre has alleged that there is “unauthorised” collection of toll charges from commercial vehicles. “They have become regular offenders and they keep on breaking rules, so the police has to take some strong action,” he said. He added that the party had raised similar issues in 2014 and later, the police had issued a show cause notice to GVK.
To substantiate his charges, Mr Chitre cited the Airport Authority of India’s 2003 rules where, in section 18, the authority has stated that operators can charge only parking fees and nowhere in the rules does it mention that authorities can levy toll fees. Mr Chitre said that the airport operator has no such authority to collect entry fees.
Commenting on the matter, the Mumbai airport official spokesperson said, “It’s a narrow lane and many a times, private vehicles stop there to drop passengers, which leads to a jam on the road, so we decided to force the toll to avoid the jam.” At the time of going to press, Mr Mishra was not available for comment.
