Road cess in the cost of petrol & diesel

Wind back to the times of 1996-99. The country saw a PM for 13 days, again for 13 months and for a full five year term. In all these the principal actor was the same person Sri. ABV. During his times, he recalled the famous speech of the POTUS, JFK and ordered that the interstate highways under NHAI are strengthened and widened so that there will be better connectivity across the country. He for the first time in the road building area brought in the private public partnership for the above stated purposes. The oil prices were still only administered prices and not freely determined by the OMCs in those days. His finance minister in one of his budget speeches, announced that there will be a levy of Re.1/- towards better roads and roads maintenance on the cost of petroleum products of petrol and diesel and Rs.5/- on the cooking gas.

Between then and now the amount of petrol and diesel sold in the country would have netted the OMCs a huge corpus running into a few billion INR if not in trillion. Whether the OMCs are prompt in parting with the government treasury as it is a levy for a particular purpose is not known. The balance sheet of the OMCs (which are now listed companies) do not reflect this fact. Whether the government is serious about collecting this levy from these OMCs for the stated purposes is also not known.

The successive governments since then,be it the then NDA or the UPA-1 or UPA-2 or the present NDA did not/do not seem eager to get this funds from the OMCs. The governments in their eagerness are interested in continuing with the PPP model for road building and maintenance and levying the hapless commuters a toll fee, collection of which is creating all sorts of ugly tension and a huge pile up of vehicles in such toll stations on busy highways leading to loss on account of increased fuel burnt. Why the government at least now should notcollect the amount from the OMCs and demand an audit of the same by the CAG, and also spend the money for payment of the dues to the private players who are part of the PPP model in road building? The parliament and its members seem satisfied with their welfare taken care of than looking into all these aspects.