There had been toll disruptions due to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's agitations across the state. But since the High Court order, IRB Infrastructure recommenced tolling in Kolhapur from today morning. The disruptions in number terms were not significant, but overall sentiment for tolling in Maharashtra suffered, says VD Mhaiskar, CMD, IRB Infrastracture. The company collected around Rs 2 crore in the last quarter on the project.
Mhaiskar says IRB Infra did not incur much of a loss due to vandalism as the state managed to step in at the right time.
Also Read: IRB expects to see good growth in toll vertical
Senthil: How are the problems looking for you in Maharashtra?
A: Things are stable. Already operations on all the plaza's are going fine. At Kolhapur where there had been toll disruption due to agitations that were going on, since the High Court order we have recommenced the tolling in Kolhapur from today morning.
Menaka: Can you give us a sense of that stoppage in tolling, what impact it had on your financials or could have on your financials and hence how this restarting will benefit?
A: In number terms it is not a significant one. However in terms of overall sentiment for tolling in Maharashtra this had been a very big issue and commencing of this toll was important for that.
Menaka: Can you run through what the numbers are very briefly?
A: We collected around Rs 2 crore in the last quarter on the project.
Menaka: However like you said sentimentally this has become a sticky issue for many road companies such as yours. Where do you see the long term solution coming in because this has raised a question mark on the tolling models so to speak or the PPP, BoT tolling model in this country altogether?
A: I don’t think so because there is a need to explain this model more and the government has very strongly backed it. We have not seen any disruptions happening across any of the projects at any point. If the project financials are explained correctly I don’t think there will be an issue. Transparency in the sector has come with the government giving the draft format in which they want the entire information about the project to be displayed at the plazas. Electronic display of that kind has already been made a year back in all the projects in Maharashtra today. With that kind of transparency I don’t see that it will be a problem at all.
Senthil: The losses you have incurred because of the vandalism so far how are you going to recover that, will it be insurance? Will it be through hiking toll rates or will the user have to pay. How do you plan to recover those losses?
A: Not much of vandalism could take place because the state handled the issue quite deftly. As a result as far as our plazas were concerned we have not see much of damages at all.
Pragya: What is the kind of increase in the toll that the company had taken? When was this implemented and you had quantified that impact at close to about Rs 2 crore that you have lost up until now if you could just clear that data points for us?
A: No, I said for last 15 days the toll was suspended because of the agitations that had happened in Kolhapur and now we have recommenced the tolling. We had started the tolling only on October 17 last quarter. In that quarter we had collected close to Rs 2 crore in that project.
Pragya: Any further toll hikes that you are planning to take for this particular project? What is the kind of revenue visibility that you are seeing just to come in from this particular project now that the tolling has begun - for FY15 particularly?
A: It would be too early to give any numbers on that. I would say that it is a very positive thing that the tolling has commenced. We hope that we are able to continue with it unhindered.
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