Mangaluru: The Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner has officially passed an order stating that there will be no collection of toll at the NITK-Surathkal toll plaza on National Highway 66 from the midnight of November 30-December 1.

Issued on November 24 and circulated to the media on November 28, the order referred to NHAI-Mangaluru Project Director’s letter of November 24 wherein the project director had informed about the decision taken by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to merge Surathkal toll plaza with that of Hejmady on NH 66.

Marking copies of the order to Mangaluru city and Udupi district police, Deputy Commissioner M.R. Ravi Kumar asked them to provide protection for enhanced toll collection at Hejmady as requested by NHAI.

Merger instead of scrapping

As against the demand of the general public, and particularly the Surathkal Tollgate Virodhi Horata Samithi, to scrap the Surathkal toll plaza, MoRTH on November 11 issued a gazette notification merging it with that of Hejmady. While the Surathkal plaza was to collect user fee for the 18 km road from Nanthoor to NITK developed under the Mangalore Port Connectivity Project by NHAI, the Hejmady plaza was to collect the user fee for the four-lane Talapady-Kundapura project executed by M/s Navayuga Udupi Tollway Pvt., Ltd., excluding the Nanthoor-NITK stretch.

User fee that was being collected at Surathkal would be collected at Hejmady, the notification said, adding NHAI would pay M/s Navayuga specific collection charges.

The samithi on Monday posed nine questions to the elected representatives of the twin districts as to whether they were not aware of the Union government’s move to merge the Surathkal plaza with that of Hejmady and why did they not oppose the merger, among other questions.