Mumbai: Starting Thursday, toll rates at Mumbai’s five entry points will increase by 20%. The new rates will be applicable on mini buses, light commercial vehicles, trucks, buses and heavy motor vehicles, while light motor vehicles, school buses and state transport buses will be exempted from paying the levy, as per an October 14, 2024 order.
The five entry points where toll is collected are Vashi (Sion-Panvel Highway), Mulund (LBS Road and Eastern Express Highway), Airoli Bridge and Dahisar (Western Express Highway). At Atal Setu, the sixth entry point into the city, toll is charged separately. Then chief minister Eknath Shinde had provided the waiver without studying the compensatory mechanism or its financial effect on the already burdened state exchequer. As per the concession agreement, toll rates are revised every three years. In return, the private company is recovering the same including the lending, administrative, operational, maintenance and other costs it incurred while making the payment to MSRDC. Tolls at these entry points are collected to recover the cost of the flyovers, bridges, subways and road overbridges built a couple of decades ago.
Mumbai Entry Points Limited, which holds the rights for toll collection on behalf of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), had last revised the rates on October 1, 2023. The rates were ₹ 75 for mini buses and light commercial vehicles, ₹ 150 for trucks and buses and ₹ 180 for heavy motor vehicles; these have now been revised to ₹ 90, ₹ 180 and ₹ 225, respectively. Toll collection at the five entry points into the city began in September 2002, was extended in 2010, and scheduled to continue till November 2026. But the deadline was extended till September 17, 2029 to offset the ₹ 900 crore compensation owed to the contractor for waiving toll for passenger cars and small vehicles in 2024, in the run up to the assembly polls. In 2010, MEPL had made an upfront payment of ₹ 2,100 crore towards capital expenditure incurred by the MSRDC.
