Tajik Road Charges Take Toll

Anger over the introduction of charges to use a section of highway in Tajikistan has sparked a protest from people who live along it.

Residents of the village of Khushyori in the Varzob district north of the capital Dushanbe staged a demonstration on April 12 demanding that people living near the road be exempted from the tolls.

Locals say the fees have led to higher prices in the shops because of transport costs, and getting to work is harder because buses have stopped servicing some routes to avoid paying the charge.

Tolls came into force on April 1 on 18 kilometers of road leading from Dushanbe to Varzob. The road is important as forms part of an arterial highway that connects the capital with the northern region of Soghd, which is cut off from the rest of Tajikistan by mountain ranges.

Other ways of reaching the north, and its main town Khujand, involve skirting Tajik territory altogether and going through Uzbekistan, which is not only a longer route, but is fraught with bureaucratic difficulties.

The toll is charged by distance at four rates depending on a vehicle’s weight and passenger capacity. Ordinary cars and minibuses are charged 30 dirams, the equivalent of six US cents, for every kilometre travelled, while heavy goods vehicles pay 88 dirams. Emergency service vehicles are exempt.

More than half of Tajikistan’s population lives on less than two dollars a day.

The toll plaza at Khushyori is the first to come into operation of seven being run by Innovative Road Solutions, a foreign-registered company granted rights to operate the road charging system.

The firm says people living in the vicinity of the toll road can get special cards entitling them to discount rates.

The government, meanwhile, says charging for road use is essential to raising enough money to keep the highway maintained and pay the cost of a 296 million dollar upgrade, funded largely by a loan from China.

About two-thirds of the Dushanbe-Khujand-Chanak road has been refurbished to date.

Apart from being crucial to Tajikistan, the highway is seen as an important link in international transport routes connecting South Asia with Central Asia, Russia and beyond.

Qurbonali Saidov, head of road safety at the Tajik transport ministry, says the highway suffers badly from frequent use, and needs to be maintained to keep it up to international standards.

“If we abandon this [toll] mechanism, within a couple of years the road will be ruined and there’ll be no talk of an international transit corridor,” he said. “Most of the costs… have to be covered by those who use the road.”

Rustam Abdulloev is deputy director of the state agency overseeing the highway reconstruction project, and says the government just does not have the money to pay for maintenance costs.

At the same time, he accepts that it is important that the average citizen should not be hit too hard by the levy.

That is a concern shared by businessman Validjon, who transports potatoes and other vegetables from Soghd region to sell in Dushanbe. After calculating that one truckload will cost him 230 dollars in charges once tolls are introduced along the entire length of the route, he asked, “What’s left for me to do? All I can do is raise the prices for my farm produce.”

When Khushyori residents came out to protest on April 12, local government officials came out to meet them and pledged to review their demands, although nothing has happened since.

“None of the residents was aware that a toll was being introduced from April 1,” said local man Abdurazok Saidov.

Transport costs in the area have increased threefold in some cases as minibuses, the most popular form of transport, have to cover the toll costs. People taking vegetables to market, going to the mosque for Friday prayers, or visiting the area clinic, located in Khushyori, are all paying more. The minibuses have even changed routes to avoid the toll post, so that certain bus stops no longer have a service and people have to walk to the next one.

One local government officer told IWPR she was overcharged when travelling to Khushyori. Staff at the toll plaza made her pay the full charge as if she were coming from Dushanbe, even though she was just travelling from one village in Varzob district to another as part of her job. On leaving by the same rate, she was charged the same amount.

“I can’t pay that amount,” she said. “In the government job I have, I don’t earn that much for a day’s work.”

Another road user alleged that bribery was already creeping into the system, and that bus drivers in particular were slipping toll attendants a sum of money so as not to pay the official fee.

“They tell us we are following Europe’s example, but they don’t say anything about raising wages to European levels,” he added bitterly.

Analyst Abdullo Qurbonov agreed that the cash-strapped public was bearing the brunt of the road refurbishment costs.

“Our population isn't yet ready to pay such high charges – and the initial fee will inevitably go up,” he said.

Shodi Shabdolov, head of the opposition Communist Party, questioned the timing of the new fees.

“The government of every country in the world is taking steps to mitigate the effects of global financial and economic crisis, and here we are going in the opposite direction.”

Sayido Nazarov and Nargis Hamrabaeva are IWPR-trained journalists in Tajikistan.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.