Moneycontrol BureauThe demonetisation exercise turned out to be painful for toll collections which dropped a sharp 20 percent year-on-year in the three months to December 2016, reports Financial Express. In November, the government announced suspension of toll collection on national highways to ease pressure on commuters after Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 were rendered defunct.
Companies like MEP Infrastructure and IRB Infra bore the brunt of note ban and even asked for compensation for the losses incurred by them after the note ban aftermath.
Due to shortage of cash, commuters were not charged toll fee for 25 days. Toll collections this year saw a major downfall with a clutch of 19 roads getting Rs 644 crore as revenue as against Rs 804 crore in October-December 2016.
According to an estimation by ICRA, toll revenues for 115 roads will see a downfall due to cash chaos at over RS 1,000 crore.
Roads busy with traffic took the major hit and revenue of routes like Bijapur-Hungunda and Dhule-Palasner fell by 25-30 percent. Loss of 22 percent in toll collections was reported by Tumkur-Chitradurga road which attracts the mining traffic in Karnataka. The Surat-Dahisar and Bharuch-Surat registered a fall of nearly 29 percent and 24.5 percent, respectively.
MEP Infrastructure had filed a claim worth Rs 42.5 crore with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for loss of revenue, and that the loss needed to be added to the third quarter revenue. Following suit, IRB Infra also demanded compensation of Rs 151.7 crore due to stoppage of toll collection.
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