Excess, wrong FASTag deductions hassle road users at Vanagaram toll

CHENNAI: Many truckers and car owners in the city have been raising complaints of incorrect FASTag deductions at the Vanagaram toll plaza on the Chennai Bypass Road (Tambaram-Maduravoyal).
In a written complaint filed with the city police, S Ramadurai, who owns two trucks, said that for more than a year the automated scanning system at the said toll plaza has been debiting 265 from his FASTag accounts for one-way trips, while the actual amount to be collected for his 10-wheeler trucks are only 180 per trip. As per toll notification, the National Highways Authority of India is supposed to collect 265 for 16-wheelers only.
Ramadurai, who was under the impression that 265 was the actual toll fee, got to know about the actual rate only when the NHAI recently notified the revised toll rates. His complaint stated that the NHAI through the private contractor has been collecting 300 extra every day and for the past one and a half years he had lost over 2,00,000.
"Employees at the toll (hired by the private contractor roped in by NHAI through a tender) and highway officials made us run from pillar to post when we complained about it. There has been no response till date. The worst part is that even city police are not ready to register a case against this and referred the complaint back to NHAI," he said.
S Yuvaraj from Tamil Nadu Lorry Owners' Association said that this is not an isolated case as many truckers operating from the city have faced this issue along with double or duplicate entries. "Will NHAI or police allow truckers to go scot-free if we wrongly registered our 16-wheeler truck as a 10-wheeler to pay less at toll plazas? It is high time the police book the contractor and erring officials," he said.
Not only trucks, but even private car owners took to the social media to complain of the deductions they had to face even when they never took the toll.
In one such case, J Gopalakrishnan, a retired bank employee from Korattur said that 50 was deducted when his car was parked idle at home.
NHAI officials in response claimed that there was a confusion in the last digit of the vehicle registration number while scanning and the deduced amount was refunded to the vehicle owner after verifying it with the camera feeds. However, they did not have an answer for the other concerns raised by transporters.