Nitin Gadkari’s statements clubbed together to falsely suggest no toll tax needed within 60km radius of home

A video featuring Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari speaking in Parliament has gone viral on social media. While sharing the video users claim that Gadkari has announced that if a person resides within a 60-kilometre radius of a toll plaza, s/he is exempt from paying toll tax.

BJP supporter Sanjay Fadnavis shared the video, stating that if a toll booth was located within 60 kilometres of one’s home, no toll fee was required. (Archived link)

आपके घर से 60 किमी के भीतर किसी भी टोल बूथ पर कोई टोल शुल्क देय नहीं है। इसके लिए आपको अपने आधार कार्ड से गुजरना होगा।@nitin_gadkari
यह केंद्र सरकार का आदेश है. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/GJQ5Nda26I

— SANJAY FADNAVIS (Modi Ka Parivar) (@sanjayfadnavis1) July 28, 2024

Similarly, Aadivasi Samachar shared the video with the same claim. (Archived link)

Aslam Chopdar, the state president of the Rajasthan Employment Federation, also shared the video with this claim. (Archived link)

Fact Check

To understand the full context behind the viral video, Alt News conducted a keyword search on YouTube. We came across a longer version of the viral footage uploaded on Nitin Gadkari’s YouTube channel on March 22, 2022. At 25 minutes and 14 seconds into this clip, Nitin Gadkari states that there has been a suggestion from MPs about issuing passes to residents around toll plazas based on their Aadhaar cards.

He then discusses a separate suggestion, stating that there cannot be two toll plazas located within 60 kilometres of each other, although this was currently the case in some areas. Gadkari also mentions that within three months, there would only be one toll plaza in a 60-kilometre radius, and any second plaza would be shut down. These two statements were based on different suggestions and were misrepresented in the viral claims. The misleading claims combined these two separate statements to falsely suggest that if a person’s home was located within 60 kilometres of a toll plaza, they would not have to pay toll tax.

According to the information provided on the website of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, residents living within a 20-kilometre radius of a toll plaza are eligible for toll tax exemption upon verification of necessary documents.

To sum up, multiple social media users falsely claimed that people residing within a 60-kilometre radius of a toll plaza were exempt from paying toll tax. This was based on a combination of two separate statements made by Nitin Gadkari regarding different proposals by MPs.