Private investors in road projects are likely to be allowed to levy overloading charges from commercial vehicles that do not conform to axle load norms prescribed in the Motor Vehicles Act. This is being done to protect the rates of return of private investors in road projects. The ministry of surface transport and the National Highways Authority of India have received a series of representations from road project bidders over the potential problem of overloading in commercial vehicles and the potential escalation of the operation and maintenance costs of investors both for converting existing two lanes into four lanes and for constructing bypasses and bridges on a direct toll basis.
Operation and maintenance costs of highway projects are currently estimated at 1 per cent of the total project cost. However, the actual cost is expected to be around 5 per cent, taking into consideration the loading pattern of commercial vehicles, sources said. They said the modalities for levying these excess charges would be worked out. Essentially, this would give the build-own-transfer operators the right to charge fees beyond the prescribed load of 8.25 tonnes per axle. Currently, all the overloading is charged by the regional transport authorities and the funds collected through this method accrues directly to the respective states that have levied this fee. The penalties for overloading levied by the states is Rs 1,000 per tonne of excess load.
Sources said that none of the state governments was prepared to transfer any portion of the fees to the Centre for meeting the costs of damages on the highways. Besides, the state governments have not reinvested the recoveries made through compounding fees to meet the maintenance expenditure on highways. All maintenance expenditure of national highways is done by the Centre. Moreover, none of the state governments was prepared to share the pool of compounding fees collections with private investors in highway projects.
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Consequently, the only option available to the ministry of surface transport is to allow the operators to recover this fee directly from commercial vehicles, the sources said. Another method that was suggested included off loading the vehicles on the highways. But such methods, would result in revenue risks to the build own transfer operators of the roads.
Currently the base tariffs fixed for commercial vehicles on build own transfer-based roads is Rs 1.40 paise per km and 70 paise per km for light commercial vehicles. Sources said once build own transfer operators are allowed to levy the fees along the highways, the targeted rates of return would be protected.