MADURAI: Waking up to the rot running deep in toll collection on the Inner Ring Road, the Madurai city corporation has cancelled the contract, to a firm that was entrusted with the task of collecting toll.

The action comes in the wake of the arrest of two employees of the contract firm found collecting the toll fee without issuing receipts and then pocketing the money thus collected. "Workers were roped in through Jayamurugan Manpower Agency, to man the five toll plazas on Inner Ring Road from the month of May last year. In the wake of a series of complaints against the workers, the toll plazas were constantly monitored. Based on the observations, the contract with Jayamurugan Manpower Agency has been cancelled," said corporation commissioner R Nanthagopal.

Rather than the vigil of the corporation authorities, the irregularities were brought to light by a member of the public, who posted a complaint in the Facebook page of district collectorAnshul Mishra. The collector, in turn forwarded the complaint to the police. Acting on the complaint, police monitored the toll gate No 1 on Inner Ring Road and found that the workers were collecting toll fee but were not issuing receipt. Othakadai police arrested the two employees identified as A Rajkumar of Keeraithurai and K Mookaiah of Silaman.

In fact, this is not the first time that such irregularities crop up in till plazas. Last year. the city corporation authorities led by deputy commissioner K Sabhavi conducted a raid in the toll gates and found that this practice was widespread in all the five toll plazas. Subsequently, the civic body removed employees of the contract firm then.

Now, the city corporation has chosen a Chennai-based firm to supply manpower to man the tollgates on a trial basis. "Chennai-based Third Eye has been ordered to send employees for the toll collection booths and the new employees have joined for duty," said Nanthagopal.

The corporation is also contemplating to install CCTV cameras to prevent similar irregularities in future.