MSRDC wants unused octroi land to expand its toll plazas

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) nodal agency taking care of city toll plazas and other toll highways across state wants abandoned octroi land for toll plaza expansion. The idea is to ensure easy flow of traffic at the existing toll plaza.

It has already communicated with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and a reply on same is pending. Following the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST), the octroi nakas have been defunct. In Mumbai, there are five toll plazas.

According to an official from the MSRDC the plan is to convert all city toll roads into FASTag lanes. "Unlike National Highways, the city toll plazas are small and therefore implementing FASTag immediately won't be possible. Before enabling all lanes into FASTag, the existing traffic slow study needs to be carried out. We are planning to implement FASTag but it will be done gradually."

The expansion of toll plazas by utilising abandoned octroi naka land will substantially improve the bottleneck and prevent long queues at the toll posts.

Reportedly, the MSRDC has started imposing fines on offenders without FASTag entering into dedicated FASTag enabled lanes. However, similar fines are not implemented on city roads as all are not FASTag.