Interstate Permits, Driver Batta & Tolls — Explained

🛂 Interstate permits

• Every vehicle in our fleet carries a commercial All-India tourist permit, so there is no restriction on crossing a state line.
• What is charged separately is the destination state's entry permit, raised per vehicle per trip. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Goa and Puducherry each set their own rate.
• We raise the permit as part of the booking. It is billed at actuals and is never bundled into the per-km fare estimate, so you see exactly what the state charged.
• Routes that stay entirely inside Tamil Nadu need no entry permit at all — the route page for your destination states which case applies.
• Border checkposts add time. On a multi-day trip that is absorbed by the schedule; on a same-day run it is worth an earlier departure.

💰 Driver batta

• Driver batta is a daily allowance for the driver's food and rest, not a wage and not a hidden fee. It is a standard of commercial road transport in India.
• It is charged per day of the trip, so a 3-day trip carries 3× the daily rate. Rates run from ₹600 per day on a 9+1 Tempo Traveller up to ₹1,200 per day on a 16+1 Force Urbania.
• The fare estimate on every route page already includes batta for the full duration of that trip. Nothing about it is added later.
• On overnight trips, driver accommodation is either arranged by your group or quoted by us as a fixed nightly add-on — your choice, agreed before departure.

🌙 Overnight halts and rest windows

• On any trip of two days or more the vehicle and driver stay with your group for the whole duration, including local sightseeing at the destination.
• Daily running is planned around a mandatory rest window for the driver. This is a legal requirement on commercial vehicles, not an optional comfort.
• On runs beyond 1,000 KM we plan scheduled highway breaks rather than driving straight through, which is why a 1,400 KM route is quoted at four days rather than two.

🛣️ Tolls, parking and what else sits outside the quote

• Tolls are billed at actuals. National highway toll plazas issue a receipt for every crossing and those are handed over at the end of the trip.
• Parking and entry fees at temples, parks and reserves are at actuals.
• Hill or forest entry charges apply on some routes — tiger reserves and a few hill stations levy a per-vehicle fee.
• Everything else — fuel, driver batta, vehicle maintenance, insurance and the All-India permit — is inside the per-km rate.

📊 How the per-km rate becomes a trip fare

The arithmetic is the same on every route:

• Roundtrip KM × per-km rate, measured garage to garage — from our Padi garage out and back, which is how commercial hire is metered.
• + driver batta × number of days.
• = the trip fare shown on the route page.
• Then at actuals: tolls, parking, entry fees, and the state permit if the route leaves Tamil Nadu.

Work any route yourself with the tariff calculator, or see a worked example on any outstation route page.