According to the villagers, the officials had promised to exempt the commuters from taking toll tax on the buses coming from the village, which the officials did not fulfill.
FASTag has been made mandatory by the government to remove toll plazas built on highways across the country. Many people are happy with this decision of the government and they are seeing this move of the government as a transformational step, because if FASTag will end the long lines of vehicles on the highway. However, many people are also unhappy with it. This is because earlier toll plazas were exempted from toll tax for the people of the city or village near the toll plaza, which has been closed due to the introduction of FASTag.
As a result, there are frequent cases of clashes with the local people and the employees of toll companies. One such case has come to light from Hejamadi Toll Plaza in Karnataka. However, in this case, instead of adopting a conciliatory approach, people have come up with a parallel method of bypassing the toll booth to avoid tolls.
According to the report, a new road has been constructed on the Mangalore-Udupi Highway. Villagers of Hejamadi village were given exemption after FASTag was made mandatory at the toll plaza built there. However, four buses carrying passengers from this Hejamadi village were not given any exemption in toll tax. He also complained about this and asked the administration to give exemption in toll tax. But when no proper action was taken, the villagers bypassed it by constructing a toll free road parallel to the toll booth.
According to the villagers, the officials had promised to exempt the passengers from toll tax on the buses coming from the village, which the officials did not fulfill. For this he was waiting for a long time. But an emergency meeting was called by the upcoming Gram Panchayat, in which it was decided to construct a temporary toll free road parallel to the toll booth using JCB. As soon as the matter reached the concerned officer, his responsible officers reached there and appealed to the villagers to solve the problem through dialogue. But the villagers were not ready to do so. Ultimately, the road work was stopped after the concerned officials gave written assurances to the villagers.