UP New Toll Plaza: NHAI has made preparations to start toll collection on highways connecting 4 cities of UP. These highways will be handed over to private companies and for the next 20 years these companies will collect toll from vehicle owners.
New Toll Plaza: Soon you will have to pay toll afresh to travel between 4 big cities of UP. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has planned to sell about 800 km long highways across the country to private companies, which will collect toll from the drivers driving on it for the next 20 years. Out of this, 333 km of highway is only in UP. This time NHAI has decided to sell the highways of 3 states of the country to private companies. Apart from UP, Odisha and Tamil Nadu are also included in this.
NHAI gives the responsibility of collecting toll to private companies through Toll Operate Transfer (ToT) under the Highway Monetization Scheme. This time auction bids have been invited to hand over 3 highways to private hands. Under the monetization scheme, a total of 801.7 km of highway will be handed over to private companies for toll collection in the first round.
Which cities of UP will be affected
According to NHAI, a total of 333.4 km of highways in UP are to be handed over for toll collection. These highways will be built on two sections and will affect a total of 4 cities. The first section will be Kanpur-Lucknow-Ayodhya, while the second section will be Ayodhya-Gorakhpur. This means that now toll will have to be paid afresh to go from Kanpur to Gorakhpur.
How much distance in other states
Talking about highway auction, in Odisha, NHAI will hand over the highways of Chandikhol-Bhadrak and Panikholi-Rimuli sections to private companies for toll collection. The total distance of these two sections will be 283.8 km. At the same time, a total of 184.5 km of highways of Trichy-Thanjavur and Madurai-Tuticorin sections of Tamil Nadu will be presented for auction.
Thousands of crores were received from 4 sections last year
Last year, NHAI handed over 4 sections to private companies for about Rs 15,968 crore. The work of collecting toll on these highways is done by KKR-led Highway Infrastructure Trust, Cube Highway, IRB Infra Trust, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Fund, National Investment and Infra Trust and Adani Group. NHAI takes lump sum money from these companies and these companies collect toll for the next 20 years.
22 crores per kilometer
Analysts believe that the cost of monetization of highways is Rs 22 crore per kilometer. However, it may also change due to the number of vehicles and movement of commercial vehicles. Let us tell you that NHAI has set a target of earning Rs 54 thousand crore by selling highways for the current financial year. Last year, the target was to raise Rs 40,227 crore. This year the target is to raise Rs 8 thousand crore through projects and Rs 46 thousand crore through toll transfer.
