New Delhi: Union Minister for Road Transport, Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said in Rajya Sabha that he was the “father of toll tax” on expressway in the country as first such road was built by him in Maharashtra during the time when he was the state minister in late 1990s, reported news agency PTI. The remark by the senior minister came while responding to supplementary queries in Question Hour where members expressed concerns over the setting up of toll plazas on expressway inside city limits due to which the local population had to pay toll even while commuting within a city, as per the report.
The road transport minister, who is often praised even by opposition members for the performance of his ministry, assured the members that the issue will be rectified and claimed the problem had arisen under the UPA rule.
While responding to the queries, the Union Minister said that before 2014 when the UPA government was in power, tolls were introduced near the city and everyone had to pay it. “This is very unfortunate and unlawful,” he noted.
Union minister Nitin Gadkari tells Rajya Sabha members that he is “father of toll tax” on expressways in country as he built first such road in Maharashtra during his stint as state minister in late 1990s
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 3, 2022
“Fortunately or unfortunately, I am the father of this toll because for the first time in this country, I started the toll system and the first project of BOT (build-operate-transfer) was Thane in Maharashtra,” the Union Minister said.
Under Gadkari’s stint as PWD minister in the Maharashtra government between 1995 and 1999, the first of its kind Mumbai-Pune Expressway project was taken.
The Road Transport Minister said that the new system which will be launched soon “we will see that the city area will be eliminated and there will be no charge on the people”.
He said often the people in the city use only 10 km of the expressway road and are made to pay the toll for 75 km.
“That is absolutely wrong. But that is not my problem and it happened during the previous government. We will rectify the thing,” he said, allaying the concerns of members