Nhai Seeks To Retain Toll Funds

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has sought permission to retain the revenue raised through tolling of projects for the development of highways, though the ministry of finance is yet to take any decision on earmarking of funds.

Currently, the revenue raised through tolling of bridges, bypasses and four-laning projects is credited into the public account. In the Jaipur-Katputli sector in Rajasthan, the tolling is done by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

In this sector, where tolling began on an experimental basis early this year, the projected collection is about Rs 40 crore per year, based on the current traffic flow. With the commissioning of some of the bypasses, including the Moradabad bypass, the toll revenue is expected to quadruple making it a sizeable corpus. In addition, funds raised through cess on petrol is expected to bring in approximately Rs 790 crore annually.

However, these funds are not directly available to the ministry of surface transport or NHAI since they are credited to the public account. Even the accretions to the central road fund are credited to the public account. This implies that these accretions are not necessarily earmarked funds and drawals from these accretions will have to be cleared by the ministry of finance as in the case of the Indian Railways Depreciation Reserve Fund.

The sources said earmarking the revenues would allow the surface transport ministry and NHAI to meet some of the immediate development and maintenance works on the national highways.

Currently, most of the maintenance and development works on the national highways were being carried out on a "stage construction basis." Stage construction implies that maintenance or development works are being carried out on the basis of funds availability and not according to the requirements of the NHAI or the ministry. The funding is mostly from budgetary transfers. This year, for instance, budgetary transfers to NHAI are about Rs 500 crore, which is inadequate to meet the costs of development and maintenance. Consequently the maintenance arrears on the major national highways are estimated to be Rs 10,000 crore.

In addition, NHAI also requires funds to meet some of the project support mechanisms. This includes providing subordinated loan support for some of the projects like the Durg bypass project. In the case of the Durg bypass, NHAI has provided subordinated loan support for meeting the debt service payments to financial institutions.