India's top 10 toll plazas collect Rs 13,988 cr in 5 years: Govt data

The country's busiest toll plazas, located on major national highways, have emerged as top revenue generators, contributing over 7% to India's total toll collections in the last five years

India’s busiest highways have seen massive toll collections over the last five years, with 10 toll plazas standing out for collecting the highest user fees in the country. These key toll points, located on some of India’s most critical road corridors, including the Grand Trunk Road, the Delhi-Mumbai Highway, and the east coast highway, together amassed over Rs 13,988 crore from 2019-20 to 2023-24.

 

According to official data presented by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in the Lok Sabha on March 20, the Bharthana toll plaza in Gujarat topped the list. Located on the Vadodara-Bharuch stretch of National Highway 48 (NH-48), Bharthana collected a staggering Rs 2,043.81 crore over the five-year period, with a record Rs 472.65 crore collected in 2023-24 alone.

 

 

Coming in second is the Shahjahanpur toll plaza in Rajasthan, situated on the Gurgaon-Kotputli-Jaipur section of NH-48, a major artery connecting Delhi to Mumbai. This toll plaza collected Rs 1,884.46 crore in the same five-year span.

 

The Jaladhulagori fee plaza in West Bengal ranks third, collecting Rs 1,538.91 crore. It is located on the Dhankuni-Kharagpur stretch of NH-16, which runs along India’s east coast and forms part of the Golden Quadrilateral, a major project linking key cities.

 

In fourth place is Barajore toll plaza in Uttar Pradesh, which brought in Rs 1,480.75 crore. Positioned on the Etawah-Chakeri (Kanpur) section of NH-19, this stretch is part of the historic Grand Trunk Road, a major national highway.

 

Rounding out the top five is Gharaunda toll plaza on the Panipat-Jalandhar stretch of NH-44 — India’s longest highway, which runs from Srinagar to Kanyakumari. Gharaunda recorded a toll collection of Rs 1,314.37 crore over the last five years.

 

Other notable entries in the top-10 list include:

 

- Choryasi toll plaza on the Bharuch-Surat stretch of NH-48, Gujarat 

- Thikariya/Jaipur Plaza on the Jaipur-Kishangarh stretch of NH-48, Rajasthan 

- L&T Krishnagiri Thopur on NH-44 in Tamil Nadu 

- Nawabganj on the Kanpur-Ayodhya section of NH-25, Uttar Pradesh 

- Sasaram toll plaza on the Varanasi-Aurangabad stretch of NH-2, Bihar

 

In total, these 10 toll plazas accounted for over 7 per cent of the nationwide toll collections, which stood at Rs 1.93 trillion between 2019-20 and 2023-24. Of this, Rs 55,882 crore was collected in 2023-24, the highest in any single financial year.

 

While the average collection of each toll plaza during the period was Rs 190 crore, the average collection of these top-10 plazas stood at almost Rs 1,400 crore. Currently, there are a total of 1,063 user fee plazas or toll plazas across the country, out of which a total of 457 toll plazas were constructed in the last five years.