Maharashtra Navnirman Sena workers will begin to blockade toll booths across Maharashtra from tomorrow, continuing its campaign against road use fees, party chief Raj Thackeray said on Sunday.



Thackeray told a rally in Pune that his meetings with state chief minister Prithviraj Chavan had proved fruitless, forcing him to press forward with his agitation to make road fees "transparent".



Over the past few weeks, MNS workers have vandalised several toll booths across Maharashtra, as Thackeray exhorted his followers to stop paying road use fees, attack check posts and beat up anyone opposing them.



The party’s vigilantism has, justifiably, faced a storm of criticism. Several MNS workers have been arrested and two cases were registered against Thackeray for inciting violence. But even as they condemn his methods, transport experts acknowledge that his demands may actually be have some merit.



The corruption in India’s toll system has long been questioned by transport experts, RTI activists and road users. In Maharashtra, where 169 state toll points collect an average of Rs 750 crore annually, the biggest grouse is the lack of transparency in the accounting system and the persistently poor condition of roads despite the large usage fees. In 2011, activist Anna Hazare staged a protest against the agencies running toll booths, claiming that they were collecting tolls even after their contracts with the government had expired.



For many, however, the more complex problem is whether the system of collecting tolls on many new roads is actually justified.



The root of the problem, says urban planner Pankaj Joshi, is that the authorities have begun to treat tolling as a means of revenue collection. “Internationally, the fundamental premise of a toll is to recover the cost of construction,” said Joshi, executive director of the Mumbai-based think tank Urban Design Research Institute.



When the state allows a private agency to collect a toll for a fixed number of years, the toll rate is based, among other things, on the estimated density of traffic and it allows for a certain margin of profit for the agency. But if the number of vehicles using the tolled road shoots up faster than expected -- as has been the case in urban Maharashtra -- the toll rates should be brought down.



Instead, says Joshi, tolls have only been increasing over the years. In Mumbai, the state has already announced a 20 per cent toll hike at the city’s five entry-exit points, to be levied from October.



“A toll basically has to work like an EMI [to pay back a home loan]," said Joshi. If an agency collects money over and above the recovery of its costs, and after making its determined margin of profit, then it is in violation of its contract. He added, “At the moment, this is happening all over the country.”



Dayanand Nadkar, general-secretary of the Truck and Tempo Mahasangh in Mumbai, remembers a time, about 15 years ago, when heavy vehicles that did not want to use tolled roads to get from one city to another had the option of taking a free service road. At that time, tolls were collected only for bridges over creeks and railway lines. But then, the state government began initiating numerous public-private partnerships to build roads.



“Now, every single route leading outside the city, as well as the old Mumbai-Pune Highway, is tolled,” said Nadkar. “I would not mind paying for good roads if they provide us with basic amenities such as toilets, ambulance services and, in the case of heavy vehicles, enough space for emergency parking on the side. But these are not provided, so I should have the option of using a service road.”



The provision of such amenities is among the things that the MNS has been agitating about in Maharashtra. “In other states like Karnataka, all the basic facilities are provided and the toll charge is comparatively lower,” claimed Pravin Darekar, an MNS general secretary.



Despite this, some believe the collection of tolls cannot -- and must not -- be stopped.



Ashok Datar, a transport analyst and chairman of the non-profit Mumbai Environmental Social Network, recommends that tolling should continue as a kind of congestion charge even after the state has recovered its construction costs. In such a scenario, however, Datar recommends tolling only private vehicles. “This would give an incentive to people to use more public transport,” he said.



