‘MSRDC shielding toll contractors’

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is shielding toll contractors for not revealing the records of the VIP vehicles being exempted of paying tolls on various toll booths including five entry points of Mumbai and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, a toll activist has alleged.

Sanjay Shirodkar had filed a Right to Information (RTI) query to procure data of the VIP vehicles, which are being exempted from paying tolls on the five entry points and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, to which the MSRDC had replied that such information is only available with the contractor who maintains the traffic data.

Later, in December 2015 and January 2016 when Mr Shirodkar filed an RTI query with the MSRDC asking its contractors to provide information on the data maintained by them. The MSRDC replied, “The contractor is a private limited company which is incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 and does not fall within the preview of the RTI Act, 2005 and is under no obligation to either maintain or provide on the information request under the purview under the RTI Act”.

“We do not maintain the list, as there is no such condition in the contract asking the contractor to submit the list of VIP vehicles,” said D.A. Salunke, chief engineer of toll monitoring unit (TMU), MSRDC.

The contract documents available with this newspaper reveal that the contractor is bound to maintain the data relating to the operation and maintenance of tolls booths and also submit data of prepaid toll and exempted vehicles list in the form prescribed by the MSRDC on its request.

“How can they deny any information when there was such a condition present in the tender document itself. MSRDC is defending that there will be no problem once the real-time data collection software to monitor toll collection at every MSRDC tollbooth in the state is implemented. But what about the under-reporting of the toll data that is being carried from years,” questioned Mr Shirodkar.

MSRDC is going to develop the software with the help of ‘Wide Area Network’ (WAN) connectivity, and all WAN servers will be connected with the main server at MSRDC’s head office in Mumbai, which will not allow the contractors to under-report the traffic data.

Mumbai Entry Points Infrastructure Developers (MEPID), which operates the five toll booths at Mumbai entry points and the Indian Road Builders (IRB) the Mumbai-Pune Expressway were not available for comment.