6 days ago
- Business
- New Indian Express
New toll formula to slash user fee for Chennai's elevated highway projects
CHENNAI: With the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) constructing multiple elevated corridors on heavily congested stretches in Chennai and other major metro cities across the country due to space constraints and land acquisition challenges, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) has made changes in the toll calculation formula for flyover and bridges on highways reducing the user fee significantly.
If an entire national highway stretch is built as an elevated corridor, the toll fee will be reduced by 50%. For stretches where elevated corridors make up 50% or more of the total NH length, toll charges will drop significantly – by around 10% to 40%. To this effect, the MORTH has amended Rule 4 of the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008, and the notification was issued last month.
The decision would lead to reducing the toll fee in the under-construction Chennai Port-Maduravoyal double-decker project by 50%. It will also benefit the future elevated projects which are being planned by the NHAI in Kilambakkam-Maraimalai Nagar (17 km) and Sriperumbudur-Maduravoyal (36km) stretches, which is an extension of the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway, by next year.
The new rule mandates that the tollable length should be multiplied at five times the actual elevated highway/bridge distance instead of the previous multiplier of 10. The 10 times multiplier will still apply if elevated roads/bridges account for less than half of the NH stretch. However, in such cases, the total tollable length cannot exceed five times the actual highway length, according to the notification.
