The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (Yeida) on Thursday said it has approved a toll rate hike of up to 12% on the 165km Yamuna Expressway that connects Greater Noida with Agra. The new rates will come into effect from October 1, 2024, officials said.
The new toll rates are ₹1.50 per kilometre for two-wheelers, three-wheelers and registered tractors against the earlier rates of 1.25/km, and ₹2.95/km for cars, jeeps and light motor vehicles against the earlier rate of ₹2.6/km.
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Buses and trucks will have to pay ₹4.6/km against the old rate of 4.15/km, while heavy vehicles will have to pay ₹14.25/km against the old rate of ₹12.90km. For oversize vehicles, the toll will be ₹18.35/km against the old rate of ₹16.60/km.
From 2012, when the expressway was built, till 2015, it was the Uttar Pradesh government that approved the annual hike. But in 2015, the government directed Yeida to decide the annual toll hike. Accordingly, Yeida on Thursday, in its board meeting, decided to hike the toll on the expressway so as to enable the operator to collect a toll of around ₹1 crore daily, said officials.
The Suraksha Group, which took over debt-ridden Jaypee Infratech Limited, currently manages the toll and the expressway. Its officials refused comment on the matter on Thursday.
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Yeida said the latest hike has come after three years.
“Since 2021-22, the toll operator, Jaypee Infratech Limited, kept urging us to approve a toll hike on the Yamuna Expressway but we kept refusing it to benefit the general public. We did not let it happen for three years. But now, we had to approve the hike because of the agreement that we are committed to honour with Mumbai-based Suraksha Group. That company will develop the stalled Jaypee apartments only if we will enforce a toll hike annually,” said Arun Vir Singh, chief executive officer, Yeida.
The debt-ridden Jaypee built Yamuna expressway in 2012, and also got land for constructing around 30,000 apartments in Noida and Greater Noida. All these assets have been taken over by the Suraksha Group in June this year following a long legal battle.
One of the key conditions for the takeover that Suraksha had put forward was that the expressway toll will have to be hiked annually, said Yeida officials.
Yeida said the toll operator recently sent a letter demanding an increase in toll rates, citing the heavy losses that it incurred in managing the operations of the expressway.
“If we spread the hike of 12% over three years, then it is only a 4% hike annually since 2021. The authority board has also directed the operator to submit the traffic forecast and current vehicle pressure report to the authority so that we can determine the toll that the operator is set to collect on the expressway,” said Singh.
