Toll rates on Mumbai-Pune e-way to rise as MSRDC appoints new contractor

IRB Infrastructure Developers will be paying Rs 8,262 crore to MSRDC and will have the rights of collecting toll on the stretch for the next 15 years. IRB was the only player in the reckoning for bagging the bid after companies which had shown interest earlier, including the likes of Adani Group, had backed away.

The existing right for collecting toll had ended in August 2019. The earlier right for collecting the toll were granted by the MSRDC in August 2004 to Mhaiskar Infrastructure (MIPL) — an SPV of IRB Infrastructure Developers. The contract signed for 15 years entailed that the contractor should develop, operate and maintain the Mumbai-Pune section of NH-4, along with the operation and maintenance of the expressway project. The concessionaire in 2004 had paid an amount of Rs 918 crore for bagging the project. After the lapse of the contract MSRDC had handed over toll collection on the stretch to Sahkar Global, which was appointed as a temporary contractor.

Under the terms of the contract IRB will be paying MSRDC an upfront amount of Rs 6,500 crore. The remaining amount will be paid to MSRDC in installments.

The 93-km Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which connects Mumbai to Pune, is India’s first six-lane concrete, high-speed, access controlled tolled expressway. The expressway starts at Kalamboli (near Panvel) and ends at Dehu Road (near Pune).

Amid the fresh award of the toll collection rights, the Uddhav Thackeray government on Monday renewed the employment contract of MSRDC’s Vice Chairman and Managing Director Radheshyam Mopalwar.

Mopalwar, a 1995-batch IAS officer, had attained superannuation on February 28 last year, but the then Devendra Fadnavis government had issued orders re-employing him on contractual basis for a period of one year. The Thackeray government has now extended his tenure by another year, confirmed sources. Mopalwar had resumed his position at the MSRDC in December 2017 after getting a clean chit from a government-appointed panel that had probed allegations of graft against him. He had earlier been asked to proceed on leave in August, 2017, after the allegations against him had first surfaced.