DND Toll Chinks
By Shivaji Sarkar
Indians tormented by high prices, high tolls and irrational so-called fastag got a minor relief on consideration of the concept as anti-people. The Supreme Court ruled that the 9.2km Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) flyway will be toll-free as it dismissed a plea by a private firm challenging the 2016 decision of the Allahabad High Court order asking it to stop collecting toll from commuters.
In effect the SC upheld the concept that awarding a contract to private firm Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd (NTBCL) to collect toll from commuters plying on the DND flyway was unjust, unfair and arbitrary. This is the sine qua non of a continuous strife going on with both the Central government and its National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), which go on imposing irrational toll on people’s highways, a road they won and land purchased with the taxpayers’ money.
The landmark judgement may ensure all highways remain free of charges to users and no levying of arbitrary and illegal fee on NHAI road users. It would cut costs of commodity prices too.
The top court’s DND judgment is virtually a challenge for imposing any tax on the travelling people, who are the real owners of the road. Petrol cess earnings of Rs 18,02,463 crore was not revealed as NHAI earnings during 2018-2021. This can change the toll scenario all over India.
The SC decision on ending DND toll in the heart of Noida and Delhi, will benefit lakhs of people who commute daily on the flyway as well as highways in future. “There is no reason for the collection of user or toll-tax to continue. We hold that the agreement (for toll collection) is invalid,” the bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan held. It finds the company realised costs within a short span.
Virtually tolls on all roads are imposed with such arbitrary conditions be it of state governments or NHAI. It pulled up the NOIDA authority for delegating toll collection to private firm NTBCL, which did not have any prior experience and said it has resulted in unjust enrichment. The bench said that NOIDA overstepped its authority by delegating the powers to NTBCL to collect or levy fees and it has led the general public to part with hundreds of crores of rupees.
The high court, in October 2016, had ruled following a PIL that there would be no toll collected from those using the 9.2 km-long, eight-lane Delhi-Noida Direct flyway.
Broadly toll imposition on highways are no less arbitrary. In an over 100-page judgment, the high court had held, “the user fee which is being levied/realised is not supported by the legal provisions relied upon by the Concessionaire (Noida Toll Bridge Company), Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (promoter and developer of the project) and the Noida Authority.” It had said the “right to levy and collect user fee from the commuters suffers from excessive delegation and is contrary to the provisions of the UP Industrial Development Act”.
The PIL, filed in 2012, had challenged the “levy and collection of toll in the name of user fee by the Noida Toll Bridge Company”. The SC validates the petition the petition for DND operational since 2001. The toll was removed on court orders in November 2016
It further suggested that the Prevention of Corruption Act could have been invoked had it not been for the long passage of time. It held “this blatant misuse of power and breach of public trust has profoundly shocked the conscience of the court”. The formula used to calculate the total project cost, the court endorsed findings from the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report, which highlighted serious lapses, including inflated project costs and an assured return rate of 20 percent, far above market rates.
This is a landmark judgment in Toll Grey Areas. All over the country, the state government or other toll provisions apparently have less of clarity. It is expected to have impact all over the county on the toll rates, cess collections, land acquisition, and levying of toll on the land acquired with the taxpayers’ money for his own use. In other words, could there be toll on a land acquired by the road user himself?
There are too many grey areas. In 2024, toll collection revenue on national highways was over Rs 648 billion, a 35 per cent increase from the previous year. Despite that since 3 June toll rates are hiked by 5 per cent, without an explanation. The total toll length in India has increased from 25,996 km in 2019 to 45,428 km as of November 2024.
The year-wise revenue collected as cess on petrol (quietly rephrased Excise duty) on all petroleum products during the last three years i.e. 2018-19 – Rs 2,14,369; 2019-20 – Rs 2,23,057; and 2020-2 1 is Rs 3,71,726. It is a huge fraud committed on the road user. The figures if added to Toll levies mean almost 50 per cent extra amount is collected for the purpose of road construction and diverted.
The non-mentioning of petrol cess in 2018-19 was Rs 5,75,632; Rs 2019-20 was Rs 5,55,370 and Rs 6,71,461 in 2020-21, total of Rs 18,02,463 crore, according to answer in the Rajya Sabha on August 11, 2021 by Minister of Petroleum Rameshwar Teli. It raises costs of all commodities adding to severe inflation.
This calls for scrapping of all tolls collected by the NHAI. The year 2024-25 could be unique if the DND toll principles applied universally over all NHAI tolls ensuring recoveries from the NHAI and state highway systems.
A Japanese study found that the effect of highway construction and increase in travel distances on retail prices of butter in Japan rose by 5.3 per cent between 1966-80. India has yet to do such a study. But Indians could have immense relief if the DND principles are applied widely to end the highway toll for all classes of vehicles. — INFA