The Cabinet on Monday approved the draft of the ‘Toll Policy, 2014′ aiming to bring the existing district, regional and national highways under toll coverage to help ensure development and maintenance of the countrywide road networks as well as boost the government’s revenue earnings.
The approval was given at the regular weekly meeting of the Cabinet held at Bangladesh Secretariat today with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the proposed policy would make the toll realisation process transparent and modern alongside raising the non-tax revenue.
“The revenue that will come from the toll will go to the Road Development Fund and it will be spent later on development and maintenance of the road infrastructures across the country,” he said.
The Cabinet Secretary said the Communications Ministry realised that there should be a comprehensive toll policy for the country’s road network. Against this backdrop, the toll policy is being framed by updating the existing Toll Act, 1851.
He said the countrywide road network that remains only under the Roads and Highways Department will be covered under this policy. There will be three categories of road network — district highways, regional highways and national highways — apart from important national highways like Dhaka-Chittagong.
The main features of the policy are identifying the possible toll realisation infrastructures, realisation method, where the toll will be deposited, on what basis the toll will be determined, fixation of the base toll, keeping the scope for raising the rate of toll and its adjustment.
The toll will be realised in three methods — Operation and Management (O&M) following tendering process, open auction method and finally by the department if there is no bidder available.
The Cabinet Secretary said that there would be 13 categories of vehicles to be covered under the toll where the maximum toll will be 250 percent of the base price while the minimum toll is 2.5 percent of the base price. The base toll will be revised and rationalised in every three years.
For the national highways and important highways, the toll applicable for the medium size truck will be 100 percent of the base toll, for heavy truck 200 percent, for trailers 250 percent, for big buses 90 percent, for mini truck 75 percent, for agriculture goods-laden vehicle 60 percent, for minibus 40 percent and cars 25 percent of the base toll.
The floor price of toll will be Tk 5 for the rickshaw vans while the maximum toll for the trailers will be Tk 1000.
Musharraf said the overpasses, flyovers, bridges, tunnels, ferries and similar infrastructures in the district, regional and national road networks will be covered under the toll coverage while the bridges having the length of over 200 meters will be covered under toll.
Besides, roads, bridges and other infrastructures being constructed on Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) basis would be covered under toll while if any permanent structure is built instead of ferry services, then the toll would be in place for one year.
In case of bridges, there will be four slabs for realizing tolls. These are 200-500 meters, 501-700 meters, 751-1,000 meters and 1000 meters and above. The base toll for the district highways would be Tk 100, regional highways Tk 200, national highways Tk 300 and important national highways like Dhaka-Chittagong Tk 400.
Asked whether the proposed toll will put any impact on the country’s economy, the Cabinet Secretary said there will be no such impact on the economy, especially on the prices of essential commodities considering the size of the overall economy.
“This toll will go to the Road Development Fund which is very important for development and maintenance of roads. You’ll have to pay for the services that will be reinvested,” he said.
Replying to another question, he said the proposed toll is not absolutely new rather it is addition and expansion of the coverage of toll, which is healthy for the country’s economy.
Musharraf told another questioner that the Roads Division will not be able to implement the policy overnight rather the Division will have to go for execution of the policy in phases.
The Cabinet Secretary said the Roads Division has finalised the draft policy in consultation with the concerned stakeholders.
Meanwhile, another agenda on the draft ‘Insurance Policy’ was withdrawn from the day’s meeting as Finance Minister AMA Muhith was not present.
Ministers and state ministers and secretaries concerned attended the meeting.
Source: UNBConnect
