After inviting bids and scrapping the same for real time toll collection, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has now taken a U-turn claiming that the corporation will not appoi
After inviting bids and scrapping the same for real time toll collection, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has now taken a U-turn claiming that the corporation will not appoint third party contractors for developing a software for real time toll collection and instead will self appoint staff to initiate the process of real time toll monitoring. However, toll activists have alleged that the MSRDC is delaying the process of bringing in transparency and shielding the contractors who are under-reporting the traffic data.
After the MSRDC in July 2015 had found under-reporting in the toll collection it had claimed to bring transparency by having real time toll collection system.
Further, the MSRDC last month scrapped the bids for real time toll collection for the monitoring purpose at five entry points of the city and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway (MPE) citing conflict of interest between the company that was short-listed as the lowest bidder and the company that collects tolls on the expressway.
“After scrapping bids for the real time toll collection we have now decided to appoint staff in the MSRDC itself for having the software being developed for the real time toll collection,” said, Radheshyam Mopalwar, managing director, MSRDC.
The MSRDC is going to develop a software with the help of “Wide Area Network” (WAN) connectivity, and all WAN servers are to be connected with the main server at the MSRDC’s head office in Mumbai, which will not allow the contractors to under-report the traffic data.
Toll activists claim this is just another time-consuming tactic and for developing the software the MSRDC should go by the bidding process as prescribed by the state government norms.
“The process of developing software is not going to be transparent as there will be no bidding for the same. The MSRDC has no expertise on developing softwares and by taking things the other way it is just delaying the process of bringing in transparency,” said RTI and toll activist Sanjay Shirodkar.
