Kasaragod: The first flashpoint over toll collection on the 600-km six-lane NH 66 cutting through Kerala has erupted in Kasaragod, with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) proposing a 'temporary' toll plaza at Arikady in Kumbla.

The move has triggered strong resistance, especially since there’s a toll plaza just 20 km away at Thalappady, on the Kerala-Karnataka border, on the same highway.

Kasaragod's lawmakers -- A K M Ashraf and N A Nellikkunnu of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), C H Kunhambu of the CPM, and Congress's Rajmohan Unnithan -- led a group of protesters to the proposed toll plaza site and filled in the pits dug for its foundation Sunday evening. They warned of intensifying the protest if NHAI pushes ahead with the toll booth at Arikady, located along the 39-km Thalappady-Cherkala reach being developed by the Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society (ULCCS).
Monday evening, the CPM staged a torch rally in Kumbla.

Manjeshwar MLA Ashraf, who is at the forefront of the protest, said the proposed plaza flouts Rule 8(2) of the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008. The rule mandates a minimum distance of 60 km between two toll plazas on national highways.

On Tuesday, Kasaragod MP Rajmohan Unnithan went to Union Minister for Roads and Highways Nitin Gadkari’s office in Parliament to raise the issue directly. "I could not meet him because he was in Nagpur," Unnithan said over the phone from Delhi.

At the grassroots, an all-party action committee led by Kumbla panchayat president U P Thahia Yoosuf is anchoring the protest.

Meanwhile, the District Development Committee passed a unanimous resolution, moved by Ashraf, against the toll plaza. It was seconded by the other four MLAs, including Trikaripur’s M Rajagopalan, who heads the CPM in Kasaragod, and Kanhangad’s E Chandrasekharan, the assistant secretary of the CPI in Kerala.

District Collector Inbasekar Kalimuthu, who chaired the meeting, said the resolution would be sent to the NHAI and the state government.

Rules and protests
In Kasaragod, the designated toll plaza is coming up at Chalingal near Periya, exactly 60 km from Thalappady — in line with the rules. Chalingal falls on the Cherkala-Nileshwar stretch being developed by Hyderabad-based infrastructure major Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL). The company is also building the Nileshwar-Taliparamba (in Kannur) segment, bringing its total project stretch to 77 km.

But MEIL is running well behind schedule. Meanwhile, Kozhikode-based ULCCS has completed 95 per cent of the Thalappady-Cherkala reach, prompting NHAI to bypass its own 60-km rule and propose a temporary toll plaza at Kumbla — to start collecting user fees even before the full corridor is ready. Previously, a temporary toll gate was set up at Surathkal, on the outskirts of Mangaluru, for just eight months. "But it went on to collect tolls for eight years," said MLA Ashraf. "If the public stays silent again, trusting the authorities, there's no telling how long tolling at Kumbla will go on."

Gadkari's videos
Protesters have been circulating a video of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's statement in the Lok Sabha on March 22, 2022, where he announced that toll plazas will be at least 60 km apart on national highways. In the same speech, he said any plaza violating this distance would be shut down within three months.

But Gadkari erred by half-reading the rule. The same Section 8(2) also says: "Where the executing authority deems it necessary, it may, for reasons to be recorded in writing, establish or allow the concessionaire to establish another fee plaza within a distance of 60 km." Toll plazas are also permitted within that range to collect fees for permanent bridges, bypasses, or tunnels.

More than two years later, on August 2, 2024, Gadkari corrected himself in the Lok Sabha. When Imran Masood, MP from Saharanpur, raised the same concern regarding NH 73 (Chandigarh–Dehradun), the minister responded: "Fee plazas functioning within a 60 km range are permissible as per NH Fee Rules and the Concession Agreement."

When Masood pressed further -- asking whether the second toll plaza on NH 73 would be closed -- Gadkari said the need "does not arise."

But Manjeshwar MLA A K M Ashraf countered that the exemption under the rule applies only under "necessary" circumstances. "Here, there's no such necessity. NHAI is acting like a mafia, unfairly passing on the burden of Megha's failure to complete the project on time to the public," he said.

Currently, large sections of Kasaragod depend on Mangaluru daily for education, healthcare, jobs and business. With the proposed fee plaza at Kumbla, they would have to pay tolls twice a day.

To grasp how close 20 km is — the highway fee rules treat it as a local range, allowing residents within that radius to apply for a toll waiver. Yet, a second plaza is being planned within the same zone. "If NHAI does not back off, we will move to the courts," said Ashraf.