Hydraulic trailer owners and operators, who move heavy and or large pieces of infrastructure equipment, want the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to define the specific levels of charges for them in the Centre’s toll policy.
At present, there is ambiguity on the issue of the exact level of toll charges on these large vehicles. The large equipment could be for power or transportation sectors.
“We have taken up the issue with the Ministry. We would like them to define favourable rates, as use of multiple axles curbs overloading and thus the damage to highways,” HTOA’s Chairman Manish Kataria told
“Oversized vehicles can be charged up to ten times the toll,” M Murali, Secretary General, National Highways Builders Federation (NHBF), told
These vehicles, which could carry more than 49 tonnes of gross vehicle weight, are not identified under the Motor Vehicle Rules and require a special process to be registered. The process involves special permission from the Highways Ministry at the Centre and multiple State road transport operators.
There are over 10,000-odd hydraulic trailer axle units registered across India—with each unit having two-eight axles, according to HTOA. About 80 per cent of these vehicles are registered in Haryana, with the remaining equally registered in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
“This skew existed because it was primarily these States that were comfortable registering these vehicles,” said Kataria.
Now, that the Ministry is set to amend the Motor Vehicles Act to ease the registration process for these transporters, the trailer operators feel the next step to smoother operations would be a pre-defined toll.