Shinde caught in the eye of toll plaza storm

THANE: The toll exemption granted to lakhs of residents in the close vicinity of the newly-opened Kharghar toll post threatens to be a potential Achilles heel for Thane guardian minister and MSRDC minster Eknath Shinde.
The minister had been the most vocal critic of the toll and is also a co-petitioner in the Bombay high court against the lack of transparency and accountability in the toll collections.
Shinde had also been on the forefront of agitations on the street and in the state legislature, demanding that the state government should comply with its earlier notification to exempt residents staying within the five-km radius of a toll booth from paying toll.
Interestingly, Shinde who is now in the decision-making position on the toll issue and heads the department which supervises the toll contractors prefers to be a silent spectator. The sudden soft-peddling on the toll issue by Shinde has raised eyebrows in the city.
‘‘The Sena leader had lead agitations to stop toll collections, albeit briefly. He raised the hope of citizens with a promise to bring in transparency and exempt locals from paying toll. However, barring the decision to set up a government committee to study the toll issue, nothing has been done that would bring relief to locals,’’ said a Naupada resident.
Citizens claimed that toll contractors have been given a ‘favourable deal’ by those in power in Mantralaya at the cost of the common man. ‘‘The then DF government had introduced the policy whereby residents living in a five-km radius of any toll post would be exempted from paying toll. However, this was never implemented. Shinde had promised to implement this in the 2009 policy, but till date it hasn’t happened,’’ a local said.
Activists who are locked in cudgels with the state government over the toll issue said that the entire toll policy is an outcome of bad governance, fiscal mismanagement and merely to profit contractors.