NICE set to hike toll rates for corridor by a leap

NICE set to hike toll rates for corridor by a leap

Rohith BR & Santosh Kumar RB. Bangalore



Janata Dal (Secular) chief HD Deve Gowda might be regretting his outburst against the chief minister on Sunday but a not-so- nice move by officials of the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) is definitely going to leave many angry, upset and maybe even abusive.
The toll rates for motorists using the corridor have been hiked by 25-40%, as per a revised toll gazette notification issued on January 2. DNA reporters, who visited the corridor on Monday, saw several copies of the notification put up by NICE .
According to the revised scheme, a two-wheeler rider, who used to pay Rs6 for the Tumkur Road-Mysore Road stretch, will now have to pay Rs8.A car user, who was paying Rs29 for the Mysore Road-Bannerghatta road stretch, will be now paying Rs38 (Rs9 extra). For two-wheeler, riders will have to pay Rs16 instead of the existing Rs11.
For the same stretch, buses will pay Rs110 (from earlier Rs84), trucks Rs70 (Rs56), light commercial vehicles Rs42 (Rs33), and multi-axle vehicles Rs75 (Rs60).
In January 2009, attempts by NICE to up the toll rates had seen motorists protesting against the hike. The company was then forced to continue with the existing rates.
NICE sought an appreciation of toll rates to make up for the project cost and for the upkeep of the corridor road.