Central Road and Infrastructure Fund Act 2000: Objectives and Benefits

India has been lacking from the infrastructural point of view because of many challenges resulting from utilising old technologies. However, when the country realised that a major part of the economy comes from the company's infrastructure, they decided to improve it, and that is when the Central Road and Infrastructure Fund came into action. 

This article discusses all the important aspects of the Central Road and Infrastructure Fund. So, let’s begin!

Earlier known as the Central Road Fund Act, this Central Road and Infrastructure Fund came into power in 2000. This fund included a tax or cess that was imposed by being paired with the excise duty on the fuels, petrol, and diesel.

The Ministry of Finance looks after this fund.

Some of the key features of the Central Road and Infrastructure Fund Act 2000 are:

• After the amendment of the previous act, the term “infrastructure” includes many more activities than before. The funds accumulated can be used for several reasons, like the construction of rural roads, national highways, inter-state links, etc. 
• Also, the amendment has resulted in an overall increase in the fund volume over time due to the increase in the number of cars and surge in the amount of levy.  
• The transition from only “road fund” to “road and infrastructure fund” may fuel the complete development of our country, India. 
• It also ensures that every construction is finished on time for an amazing infrastructure. 

The objective under the amendment stated that other than the construction of the roads, road cessation funds would also be utilised in taking care of other infrastructural aspects such as railway infrastructure, waterways and social infrastructure such as schools and colleges.

Also, it is of utmost importance that the list of infrastructural facilities be granted every year without fail. 

The main benefit of the amendment is that the Government successfully collected a fund of ₹2.69 lakh crores as toll tax in just the last three fiscal years. In the 2018-19 fiscal, ₹1.13 lakh crore was collected; in the 2017-18 fiscal, ₹83,116 was collected. Lastly, a whopping ₹72,400 was collected from the 2016-17 fiscal.

The Government always plans for the future and has some of the future expansion projects. Let’s take a look at them: 

• 1st Plan: As per our finance minister, the next 5 years will see an investment of ₹100 lakhs concerning the country's infrastructure. All this was announced in the last budget session of 2021-22. 
• 2nd Plan: In this plan, there will be serious construction of the highways, which involves the construction of more than 2000 km of highway along with 8500 km of economic corridor. 
• 3rd Plan: More than 1500 km of waterways and intensified land-port road construction. 
• 4th Plan: 2023 is the deadline for the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and two different projects. After completing this, the work for the Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway will start. 
• 5th Plan: Lastly, the country should have 6000 km of highways monetised. 

Even after such acts, our country still lacks many features required for an advanced country. It also faces many financial hurdles as the only funding source is our central government. Therefore, the road and infrastructure department has requested our finance ministry and RBI for a dedicated finance team.