Rejoice! The Delhi High Court has come to a verdict to dismantle the toll plazas at the Sirhaul border and IGI Airport at the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, after the Toll Hatao Sangharsh Samiti (THSS) had filed a writ petition in 2011 against the toll plazas. This makes the highly crowded toll plazas free from congestion and hours of traffic which actually increased the drive time instead of reducing it.
The court order came after the consent of the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and the Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd. (DGSCL) submitted their consent reports to the Delhi High Court recommending removal of the toll plazas at both the highly congested areas. Following the dismantling of the Sirhaul border and IGI Airport toll plazas; the Kherki Dhaula will be the lone operational toll plaza on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, which goes from Jaipur to Manesar.
The Delhi High Court has ordered IDFC to operate the expressway across the 27.7 km stretch that will be under the supervision of NHAI. The main challenge now however will be the upkeep of the expressway and IDFC will most probably outsource the maintenance contract to another company. Moreover, the toll charges at the Kherki Dhaula toll plaza will see a significant rise in prices to make up for the losses after the removal of the other two plazas. NHAI will issue notification on the new charges soon.
The Gurgaon traffic police too are creating a new plan to manage the traffic inflow on the expressway post the removal of the toll plazas. The traffic police plans to construct an extended U-turn at the end of Udyong Vihar flyover towards the existing toll booths to prevent accidents. We applaud the decision taken by the court in the interest of the citizens, and would advice the commuters to drive safe and make the most of the well built expressway.
Toll plazas have become a big headache as the amount of time taken to clear them far exceeds the time you save by taking that particular road. While toll plazas on expressways is still justifiable, toll plazas on normal roads is simply baffling as the authorities don’t take any sort of care of the infrastructure. While collecting money is one thing, the toll turns out too expensive for citizens as they burn more fuel while waiting and also get massively delayed. We feel all toll plazas should be dismantled and an alternative source of funding them should be considered. After all, why the heck do we pay so much road tax on our cars?
Source – Indiatoday.in