The Maharashtra Cabinet on Monday decided to waive road toll tax for light vehicles at all five entry points to Mumbai. The waiver will take effect from 12 am on Tuesday.
The announcement by the ruling Mahayuti alliance came ahead of the state elections expected to be held next month. While the term of the Maharashtra Assembly lapses on November 26, the Election Commission is yet to announce the poll schedule.
Nevertheless, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde claimed that the move to waive the toll had not been taken keeping the state elections in mind. "This decision is permanent," he told reporters.
The decision will help solve traffic congestion at the five entry points, save time and fuel, and help curb pollution, Shinde said.
The ruling Mahayuti coalition comprises the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party group.
The five toll plazas where the waiver will take effect are located at Airoli, Vashi, Dahisar, Mulund (Eastern Express Highway) and Mulund (Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg).
The entry points at Airoli and Vashi link Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, while the one in Dahisar serves as an entry point to Mumbai from Mira-Bhayandar. Both toll plazas in Mulund connect Mumbai and Thane.
In September, the toll for light vehicles had been increased to Rs 45 as part of a scheduled increase that takes place every three years.
The Maharashtra government built toll plazas at the entry points of Mumbai in the early 2000s to recover costs incurred in constructing several flyovers in the metropolitan region.
About 3.5 lakh vehicles cross the five toll plazas every day, the state’s public works minister Dadaji Dagadu Bhuse told reporters after the Cabinet decision on Monday. While 2.8 lakh of these are light vehicles, others are heavy vehicles.
“The time that people used to spend in queues will be saved,” Bhuse said. “The government was discussing it for many months and today this revolutionary decision has been taken.”
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a political party led by Raj Thackeray, had for long led a campaign demanding an end to the road tax collected from small vehicles.
In August 2023, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLA Aaditya Thackeray had asked the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation to stop collecting toll on the city’s Eastern Express Highway and the Western Express Highway, saying that the maintenance of these roads had been handed over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in November 2022.
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