PATIALA: The toll plazas under National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) across Punjab and Haryana are all set to start their operations again after a period of one year but with revised rates.
The toll plazas across Punjab and Haryana said to have faced Rs. 7.5 crores per day losses since their operations were shut down over a year ago by the farmers who started agitation to get repealed the three farm laws enacted by the central government. The farmers, at all the toll plazas, had held protests round the clock and allowed all the crossing of vehicles through these toll plazas without paying any charges. Now, after the center government had repealed these farm laws, the farmers had started to return back home and ended their agitation and also announced to lift their protest from Toll Plazas on December 15.
There are a total of 51 Toll Plazas including 25 in Punjab and 26 in Haryana under NHAI. Only under Ambala division the six toll plazas are said to have faced around Rs 500 crores of losses during the year-long agitation.
The officials of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) however claimed that the revision in the toll charges was part of the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based annual revision.
“The minimal revision in the Toll charges is based on WPI and is part of annual revision. Nothing in this is related to the farmer agitation”, said regional officer NHAI, RP Singh.
Vishal Sharma, project director, over five toll plazas on Zirakpur to Bathinda road, said, “The rate list revision is part of Annual Program Collection (APC) and as per WPI. The APC of 2021-22 was not revised following agitation. The revision will be based on increase in the traffic crossing through toll plazas”
Meanwhile, some employees at the Toll Plazas have claimed that controlling agencies at the Toll Plazas have not released their salaries of around six months despite being paid compensation under Force Majeure. “We are waiting for our salaries for six months. The employees were not expelled from the jobs but were asked to wait till the agitation of farmers comes to an end”, said an employee at Toll plaza.
However, RP Singh, regional officer NHAI claimed that salaries of none of the employees were withheld and the protest held at some places by the employees was invalid. Asked if any employees were thrown out from jobs during the agitation, he said, to appoint or sack the employee on the basis of performance or conduct is a sole decision of the contracting agency but no employee was sacked due to agitation.
