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Delhi-Noida expressway becomes toll free

Noida toll company wants DND levy back moves Supreme Court

Most employees at the toll booths were caught by surprise.

The NCR RWA hail Allahabad high court order of Wednesday directing the removal of DND toll and maintain that judgement will help their petition pending in the Delhi high court on the matter.

The plea, filed through advocate Ranjit Saxena, said that various clauses of the concessionaire agreement between the Noida authority and NTBCL were totally in favour of the toll collecting firm which has already earned almost four times of their total project cost.

The Allahabad High Court's decision today comes two months after massive protests at the eight-lane, nine km long link.

A division bench, comprising Justices Arun Tandon and Sunita Agarwal, passed the order while allowing a PIL filed by the Federation of Noida Residents' Welfare Association even as the NBTCL said it will file a plea in the Supreme Court on Thursday challenging the order. The average toll realisation was Rs 26 per vehicle in FY16. The concessionaire Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd (NTBCL), even after earning revenues in excess of Rs 1,400 crore or three to four times of the actual cost of its construction, was adamant to collect toll from the users. The court, however, observed that since the amount of operation and maintenance costs were "ever increasing", the method of calculation of the total project cost was "arbitrary and opposed to public policy". To her cost of construction is not the ultimate point, and if it were then it could have been easily crossed.

The PIL, filed four years ago, sought to remove toll collection on the Flyway.

The court also observed that the agreement between the UP government and NTBCL was a "glaring example of misuse of power by a public authority" as the Noida authority had "first entered into the agreement and then framed regulations to bring the clauses of agreement in line with the legislation to give it a statutory backing". According to Sharma, " the Noda Toll Bridge Company Limited (NTBCL which is in-charge of DND toll) have collected much more than the cost of this bridge and was unjustified in continuing the toll tax from the public". There have been complaints by our users against the toll collectors.

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Delhi-Noida expressway becomes toll free