Activist

Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation

On January 1, of the total 69,888 vehicles on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, only 28,128 vehicles were recorded to have paid the toll. This has brought home the bitter reality of alleged under-reporting of toll collection by agency IRB Infrastructure Developers in the guise of “violations”. Appointed by the(MSRDC), IRB admits that owing to long queues many vehicles are issued tickets with handheld device and tickets of many others don’t get scanned at the end of the expressway. In this regard, activist Pravin Wategaonkar’s public interest litigation (PIL) is being heard in the Bombay High Court since the past year. The next hearing for the PIL is January 31.In April last year, IRB, in response to notices issued by the MSRDC, had said, “The vehicles that are issued tickets by handheld device, or those whose tickets don’t get scanned, are considered violations.” This year, the data submitted from January 1-19 by IRB to the MSRDC shows the number of vehicles that didn’t pay the toll – or violations, as they are classified – are much higher than the vehicles who paid the toll.Wategaonkar told Mirror, “If that is the case, then it should reflect in the reconciled cash statement. Also, cash collected should include vehicles that are issued tickets by handheld device or vehicles whose toll ticket didn’t get scanned at the other end of the expressway. However, cash figures don’t reflect these reconciled numbers. They only give you tolled traffic.” He further said, “What is not in dispute is that Toll contractor IRB reports thousands of vehicles everyday as “violations” and “non-tolled” vehicles with ‘Nil’ revenue. This can be seen for each day of the current month for which the data is available.”Wategaonkar said that the material on record in his petition shows that the “violations” reported by the contractor are vehicles that do not pay toll. However, in response to last year’s notice from the MSRDC to explain these “violations”, IRB had to admit that “violations” are those vehicles whose toll is collected but the ticket not scanned. “To classify ‘toll paid-ticket not scanned’ vehicles as ‘violating’, ‘non-tolled’ vehicles is fraud in Mumbai-Pune Expressway toll collection,” he said.In an email response to queries sent by Mumbai Mirror, IRB spokesman said, “At the outset, we deny any irregularities. It also needs to be appreciated that this issue was raised in a PIL, wherein we have filed a detailed reply and the same is sub-judice before the Hon’ble Bombay High Court. In any event we clarify that data for January 1, 2019, and such other dates, cannot be taken as a benchmark. It is not that on all days the number of violations is so high. January 1, 2019 was the new-year weekend when many people travel on the Expressway.”The spokesperson added, “It needs to be appreciated that these actions are initiated spontaneously in the interest of travellers to avoid traffic jams and delays. Further, the term ‘violations’ is only a system generated terminology, which is Plaza-specific and does not imply that all such vehicles have not paid toll. As per the system, each vehicle is counted at every toll plaza that it crosses, as there is an automatic vehicle counting system. Thus, vehicles are counted multiple times, depending upon entry and exit points. Therefore, a vehicle may be in the non-tollable count at one plaza but may be accounted for in another toll plaza in the tollable traffic. However, every time a ticket is issued, the toll collected on the ticket is recorded in the system and there is a real-time reporting of data to the MSRDC.”