New Delhi: Expressing satisfaction at the progress of the ambitious National Highway Development Project, the Economic Survey has called for levying tolls on roads to ensure completion of the prime minister’s Rs 58,000-crore highway project on time without extra cost.

“The NHDP will transform the movement of goods and people in the country,” the pre-budget economic policy document tabled in Parliament said. NHDP will link four corners of the country with four-six lane highways which can sustain speeds of 80 km per hour.

While a cess of one rupee is levied per litre of petrol and diesel to part-fund NHDP, the survey said that user charges through levying of tolls on roads could be an effective means of supplementing funds, particularly in the future.

Setting the agenda for providing high growth enabling infrastructure, the survey has asked the government to enforce user charges and to form a regulatory framework that fosters competition to ensure effective delivery of infrastructure services.

Over a decade of focus on infrastructure policy has led to substantial progress in some areas and broad outlines now emerging are to “involve new institutional arrangements, well enforced user charges, exploit new technologies, private sector production, and a regulatory framework that fosters competition,” the survey tabled in the Parliament said.