look news india
For the residents of Greater Noida and Jewar region, the dream of toll-free travel on Yamuna Expressway still seems to be hanging in the balance. After the official claims and promises of providing complete freedom from toll tax to the local citizens, about four thousand people of the area had submitted their applications on the designated portal. However, even after more than a month has passed since the announcement, not a single applicant at the ground level has been able to get the direct benefit of exemption in toll fee. Due to this administrative slowness and technical delay, a lot of dissatisfaction is growing among the local villagers, traders and working people who travel daily. It was promised to implement this exemption system on the ground from September 17, but the process has not progressed on the ground.
This route is like a lifeline for the common citizens, college going students and daily wage workers going to the district headquarters, major educational institutions and industrial units in Greater Noida via Yamuna Expressway. For the last 14 years, the local people have been continuously demanding that the natives of Jewar affected by the project and settled nearby should be kept free from toll. Apart from this, farmers’ organizations have also held large-scale protests and mahapanchayats several times for making stairs for pedestrians at Khurja underpass of Yamuna Expressway and implementing the system of free travel for the people of Jewar through identity cards.
Taking cognizance of this decade and a half old demand of the regional people, with the mutual consent of Jewar’s local MLA Dhirendra Singh and Yamuna Expressway Toll Management, on the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday i.e. 17th September, a public announcement was made to provide relief to the people of Jewar from toll. During that time, an official web link was issued by the expressway management for local vehicle owners who fulfilled the prescribed eligibility. It was decided that the vehicles will be mapped to the exemption category in the Fastag database after online verification of essential documents like identity card, residence proof and registration certificate (RC) of the vehicle.
Immediately after the announcement, about four thousand enthusiastic citizens of Jewar tehsil area uploaded their documents on the portal with hope. People were hopeful that now they would not have to empty their pockets during their daily commute. But the reality is that even today when they pass through Jewar toll plaza, the entire toll fee is being deducted from their Fastag or they have to pay in cash. When an attempt was made to seek the official stand of the toll management on this subject, no satisfactory reply or clear timeline was forthcoming from their side, thereby sending a message to the public that this step was merely an exercise to calm the immediate anger.
Local residents say that people of Jewar area have to go to Gautam Buddha Nagar district headquarters i.e. Greater Noida and Noida every day for administrative work, court dates, better health facilities and employment. Similarly, a large number of youth turn to Knowledge Park and other technical universities for studies. In such a situation, families passing through the expressway two to three times a day are facing an additional financial burden of thousands of rupees every month only in the form of toll tax.
Villagers say that their valuable fertile lands were taken for this expressway and upcoming development projects, but they have to pay heavy toll to pass through the highway built on their own land. After the announcement, people had completed all the documents in the hope, but till now not even a single vehicle has received the green signal of toll waiver, raising big questions on the intentions of the local administration. If vehicles registered on the portal are not given exemption soon, farmer organizations have warned of taking the path of agitation again.
The reason behind the non-implementation of this much-awaited relief scheme is believed to be a major internal dilemma of the toll management and the concerned authorities. The 165 km long Yamuna Expressway is not limited to Gautam Buddha Nagar only, but it passes through vast rural and urban areas of Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras and Agra districts. According to sources, as soon as the process of making toll free for the local people of Jewar started, the farmer organizations and local public representatives of all the other four districts situated along the expressway also started raising a strong demand for similar toll exemption in their respective areas.
The biggest concern of toll management is that if toll free facility is provided to the residents of Jewar only on geographical basis, then it will be legally and socially impossible to keep the farmers of Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras and Agra out of this scope. If all local vehicles within the entire 165 km radius are exempted, there will be a deep crisis on the financial balance and revenue collection of the toll company. Due to this policy issue and fear of inter-district dispute, the toll management is not able to decide whether the applications should be approved under the link issued for Jewar or the entire process should be put on hold. At present, four thousand applicants of Jewar are waiting for the disposal of their files and fulfillment of the promise.