Following a diktat from Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray to his party men to vandalise toll booths and thrash anyone asking them to pay toll tax, MNS workers on Monday went on a rampage, damaging toll booths at several locations across Maharashtra.
According to the information given by the police and MNS leaders, around 25 booths in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Nanded, Nagpur, Beed, and Dhule were attacked by local MNS leaders.
?Aadve aale tar tudvun kadha (if anyone raises a voice, thrash them). Unless you are told why toll is being levied, no one will pay,? Thackeray had exhorted his party workers at a function in Navi Mumbai on Sunday night.
Hours later, MNS workers took to the streets ransacking toll booths across different parts of the state. MNS legislator Pravin Darekar and several supporters were detained at Dahisar in Mumbai after party workers attacked a toll plaza.
Following the attacks, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar issued a stern warning stating that vandalism would not be tolerated. ?The government will take strong action for resorting to violence at toll booths,? he said at a press conference held in Pune on Monday.
?Earlier, public works minister Chhagan Bhujbal had reviewed the toll booths and some 250 of them had been closed. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has also directed another review of the toll booths across the state and we are revisiting some of them that are located on single roads. A new policy on toll booths is being worked out,? he said.
A majority of the toll booths across the state display electronic signboards that display information on the expenses involved in the building of the roads, he said.
The minister maintained that toll collections were common across all the national highways in the country and had been initiated by the NDA alliance when they were in power.
Paying of toll enables quicker development, he said, citing the example of his hometown Baramati where roads were built on a BOT basis using the toll route.
The major allegation against private companies operating toll booths is that they have been deliberately showing lesser profits so as to retain the roads for more time, thus maximising their overall gains.
Most of the recently-built roads in Maharashtra, like elsewhere in India, have been built on BOT (Build Operate Transfer) basis on the PPP model.
Social activist Vishwambhar Chaudhari, who was part of the delegation lead by Anna Hazare that had met the Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan in 2011 on the issue of corruption in toll collection, said, ?Our basic demand back then was to bring transparency in the toll collection. There are no clear documents available on the expenditure, projected toll collection for the stipulated period, and what criteria are used to decide the toll collection period.?
