Telling toll tales: The creative toll avoiders hard at work in Gurgaon

Last week, all an SUV needed to duck the toll at Kherki Daula was to brandish a toy gun. But despite frequent fraudsters, fooling toll staff isn’t that easy.
On Wednesday night, operators at the Kherki Daula Toll Plaza in Gurgaon were in for some drama. Two individuals, driving an SUV, brandished a ‘gun’ and forced their way past the plaza without paying toll. It later emerged that the two had used a toy gun in an attempt to avoid paying toll. The Gurgaon Police arrested them on Thursday. It’s not the first incident of its kind at the toll plaza, which lies halfway between Gurgaon and Manesar and sees traffic from Delhi to Jaipur. In April, a toll collector was dragged for three kilometres on the bonnet of a car after he tried to stop it from evading the toll. The operators at the plaza say they get such cases every day. While it may not be as bad as Kherki Daula, but toll collectors at Gurgaon’s other toll plaza – on Gurgaon-Faridabad Road – say they deal with similar miscreants and nuisances regularly too. Arguments from motorists, leading to jams and delays, are common at these toll plazas, and toll collectors can easily classify miscreants into five categories. Do you recognise any of these motorists, trying to weasel their way out of not paying the toll?

The fake exemptees
The guidelines of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) exempt people living close to toll plazas from paying the tax. Vehicles of people living in these areas are given special exemption tags. But a lot of people try to pass off self-made fake tags at the Kherki Daula toll plaza each day. Kripal Singh, PRO, Kherki Daula Toll Plaza, tells us, “We have given exemptions to people living in 31 villages around the toll since they use this road often. We have given them exemption tags for their vehicles. What a lot of people do is scan and print those tags and stick them on their car even if they don’t live in these villages. We get a lot of such fraudsters on a daily basis. Sometimes we catch them because we can identify the fake tags, and ask them to remove the tag and pay the toll. They argue, fight, and waste time, but we don’t give any undue exemptions.”
A screen grab of an incident from April at Kherki Daula, where an operator was dragged on the bonnet of a car whose driver refused to pay the toll
The supposed sorry figures
Many toll collectors say these are the easiest to deal with as they do not resort to intimidation but pleading. “Usually, these are youngsters who say they are out of cash or that they lost their wallet, and request us to let them pass. We tell them ki PayTM ka bhi option hai. That shuts them up. It happens quite often and the only reason is that people try and see what they can get away with,” says a toll operator at Gurgaon-Faridabad toll plaza.

The vardi wale
As per NHAI guidelines, police and paramilitary personnel are not exempt from toll tax, but operators say they get a lot of senior officials, particularly from Delhi Police, requesting (or rather, demanding) that they be exempted from toll. A toll collector at Kherki Daula tells us, “When vehicles of Delhi Police pass the toll, they often demand to be given exemption. Even officers argue at times. Kehte hain ki police ko exemption hota hai. Baar baar samjhana padta hai ki police ka koi exemption nahi hai. Aise hi jab NSG or CRPF ya CISF ke vehicles jaate hain, tab bhi yahi hota hai.”

The self-proclaimed netas
This is the most common category among the entitled toll avoider, as per the toll collectors in Gurgaon. “Every day, we see multiple cars with a sticker or a flag of some party passing by and all of them say ‘vidhayak ji ki gaadi hai, iss par toll nahin denge’. But we also stay firm in our stand. In the end, they argue but most of them relent. There are rare times when some resort to physical intimidation and even threaten violence, though,” says a toll collector at Gurgaon-Faridabad Road. The election season saw a sudden proliferation of these ‘netas’ at the Gurgaon toll plazas. An operator at Kherki Daula elaborates, “With so much campaigning and rallies, we used to see dozens of vehicles with party stickers every day. Sometimes, looking at the sheer number of vehicles in a convoy, we would let them pass if they behaved aggressively. 100-200 logon se ladne ka koi faayda nahi. They would only vandalise the toll plaza. It has happened in the past with mobs.”
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