Half toll tax tempted truck drivers to take the route and the illegal tax collection went unnoticed.
On the Bamanbore-Kutch national highway in Gujarat, a few strongmen cheated government officials for over a year by setting up a fake toll plaza by bypassing the highway on private land.
The fake toll plaza was set up in Gujarat's Morbi on private land by bypassing a national highway and charged half the price at their "toll booth" and cheated people, the police, and top government officers of the district for one and a half years.
The manager of the Vaghasia toll plaza, the authorised toll of the national highway, said the private landowners were openly extorting thousands of rupees every day for 1.5 years. The accused were diverting the traffic from the actual route via land owned by the White House Ceramic Company, a closed factory and the Varghasia village.
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Half toll tax tempted truck drivers to take the route and the illegal tax collection went unnoticed for over a year.
"We received information that some vehicles were being diverted from the actual route of the Varghasia toll plaza and toll tax was being collected. The police and other officials reached the spot to investigate and filed a detailed complaint," Morbi district Collector GT Pandya said.
The police registered a complaint against White House Ceramic Company's owner Amarshi Patel, Vanraj Singh Jhala, Harvijay Singh Jhala, Dharmendra Singh Jhala, Yuvraj Singh Jhala and unknown people.
The strongmen in the area extorted money from truck drivers and forced them to pay "toll plaza", officials said.