The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will get around Rs 1,100 crore more annually, if the NHAI’s proposal for one rupee cess on the sale of per litre of petrol is cleared by the ministry. The country’s annual consumption of petrol comes around 11 billion litre .
If the proposal is accepted, it would be part of the Union Budget for 2009-10, which is to be presented in the first week of July.
Of the total cess collected on per litre sale of petrol and high-speed diesel, the NHAI currently gets one rupee and that brings Rs 7,000 crore annually, said a senior NHAI official.
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“Of the cess collected on the sale of per litre of petrol and high speed diesel we get one rupee. One rupee cess brings Rs 7,000 crore annually in our kitty,” said the official.
The NHAI had sent proposals to the government suggesting ways to raise funds for the project, which do not attract bid on public-private partnership (PPP). One among the suggestions was to levy one rupee cess on per litre sale of petrol. The proposal is pending with the government.
The authority plans to use this money in making the unviable projects under the Phase IV of the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP), which do not attract bids on the Build, operate Transfer (BOT) toll model, under annuity, said the official.
“The money collected from the cess, only if the proposal is cleared, would be used to finance the financially unviable projects under NHDP Phase IV,” added the official.
Of the total cess amount collected, 57.5 per cent of it goes for the development and maintenance of the National Highways, 12.5 per cent on the construction of bridges and safety works at unmanned railway crossing and the rest 30 per cent on development and maintenance of state roads. Out of the 30 per cent, 10 per cent shall be kept as reserved by the Central government for allocation to states road schemes approved by the Central government.
To upgrade software at the public-funded toll plazas. The NHAI is planning to upgrade the software being used at the public-funded toll plazas. The authority has 70 toll plazas at the public-funded roads. It also plans to install Automatic Vehicle Counter cum Classifier (AVCC) at the toll plazas.
An AVCC is equipment, which classifies the vehicle and sends the specification to the central server.
“This will help in making the toll plazas more accountable,” said a senior NHAI official.