Mumbai, Dec 28 (PTI) In a first, Sion Panvel Tollways(SPTPL), a special purpose vehicle of Essel Infraprojects setup to manage toll collection on the Sion-Panvel Highway, hasdecided to handover the toll plaza to the state, citing non-payment of dues to the tune of Rs 689 crore, from tomorrow.With this, the Essel group company becomes the firsttoll collection company in the state to walk back on theconcession agreement and stop toll collection.A company official told PTI that the Public WorksDepartment (PWD) owes it Rs 689 crore, which includes Rs 390crore of grants that government had promised when it scrappedtoll collection across the state in June 2015.The department has also not been paying the monthlyreimbursement of Rs 4.7 corore since February this year, thecompany said.The PWD spokesman could not be reached immediately.Following this 12 toll plazas were fully dismantled.Still there are toll plazas in Pune, Nashik, Nagpur,Aurangabad, and Kolhapur among other cities in the state."We would remove all toll barriers from December 29.We'd also stop all maintenance and operation activities fromthen," (SPTPL) said in a statement today.The company claims that it has not been receiving thegrant from the PWD for maintenance and operations of theproject since more than a year.The Rs 1,700-crore project, with a concession periodof 17 years, was exempted from toll collection by the stategovernment in 2015 as part of the ruling BJP's poll promise,which offered to exclude private vehicles from toll."SPTPL has not been receiving the grant from PWD formaintenance and operations of the project since more than ayear," it said.The company further said it had initially offered thestate to take back the project from December 15 but had sincethen extended the deadline to December 29."SPTPL would make it a 'deemed handover' in case the state does not come forward and take over on December 29, and all agencies currently working for operation and maintenance of the project shall be terminated and demobilised," the company added.

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