ISLAMABAD: After a gap of around one decade, the city managers are planning to restore toll plazas at the city’s entry points to collect revenue, Dawn has learnt.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) had closed all three toll plazas at the entry points of the Capital City—Golra Mor on the Srinagar Highway, Rawat on the Expressway and Karnal Sher Khan Road (formerly known as IJP Road)—in 2013–14 under the direction of then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
However, the CDA board, in a recent meeting, decided to restore the said three toll plazas to collect revenue, which will be spent on overhauling the roads.
“Yes, in a recent board meeting, we decided to restore toll plazas,” said Dr Mohammad Khalid Hafiz, member engineering CDA.
When asked about the toll rates, the member engineering said: “Our finance wing is working on the rates to be charged to motorists. The rates will be reasonable,” Mr Hafiz said.
Another official of the CDA said that toll collection is a common international and national practice, which is imperative for the overhaul of the roads. He said that all funds to be collected from these toll plazas would be spent on overhauling the said roads.
During the PML-N government, on the directives of the then interior minister, the CDA in 2013 stopped collecting tolls at the city’s entry points after completing their contracts. The contract for collecting tolls on Srinagar Highway, Golra Mor, and Karnal Sher Khan Road ended in 2013, and the contract for Islamabad Highway at Rawat ended on January 17, 2014.
Earlier, in 2019, the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI), during its sessions, had approved the restoration of the said three toll plazas, but their plan could not be materialised.The MCI officials were expecting Rs 2 billion in annual revenue from these toll plazas.
Before the formation of MCI, CDA used to regulate these toll plazas, but when MCI was formed, it decided to collect revenue from these toll plazas, but failed to award contracts. Now, once again, the CDA has decided to take steps to restore them.
“Recently, we got approval from the CDA board, as collection from toll plazas is necessary for timely repair and maintenance of these roads,” said an official of the CDA, adding that spending the funds of the CDA on these inter-provincial roads makes no sense.
“The funds, which CDA collects against various fees like property taxes, should be spent for repair and maintenance of streets and roads of urban areas, and all civic facilities should be provided to these tax payers. This is not fair; we spend CDA’s funds on overhauling and repair works such as Expressway and IJP Road, etc,” the official said, adding that by spending around six billion recently, the CDA completed expansion and rehabilitation work on the IJP road, while a project worth over Rs 10 billion for the expansion of Expressway is in progress.
“A board member of CDA said that all the realities related to CDA’s funding and various road projects were placed before the CDA board while getting approval of restoration of the toll plazas, and board endorsed CDA’s plea for restoration,” he said.
Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2024
