Penalty collection up at Kherki Daula toll plaza, traffic woes continue

Following the implementation of the digital-only toll collection at the Kherki Daula toll plaza, the penalty collected from commuters not using FASTags has increased by four to five times on Tuesday and Wednesday, said officials

Following the implementation of the digital-only toll collection at the Kherki Daula toll plaza, the penalty collected from commuters not using FASTags has increased by four to five times on Tuesday and Wednesday, said officials.

Commuters who do not have a FASTag have to pay double the toll amount for the violation. (HT Photo)

On an average, ₹2.5 lakh was collected in penalties every day, prior to the implementation of the digital-only payments from February 16. On February 16 and 17, penalties of ₹12.5 lakh and ₹11 lakh were collected, according to an official of the Millennium City Expressway Private Limited (MCEPL), the concessionaire.

Commuters who do not have a FASTag have to pay double the toll amount for the violation.

Toll operators said that the violators were the main cause of congestion as it takes longer to collect the cash penalty. In some instances, the quality of RFID tags issued are also not up to the mark, due to which handheld readers are required to collect the toll and allow access, they said. Around 2,000 to 2,500 tags are being read by handheld machines every day.

The MCEPL official cited above said the penalty collection is expected to decrease in the next few days. “The compliance improved on Thursday and we witnessed fewer tiffs with toll collectors as compared to previous days,” the official said.

A toll collector said that on Wednesday evening they had to close a toll lane for half an hour after a vehicle owner refused to pay the penalty and wanted to pay the toll amount through cash, refusing to purchase a FASTag.

A survey conducted by MCEPL on Wednesday for one hour found that of 200 vehicles that crossed the plaza, almost half either had no tag or have minimum balance. “Of 206 vehicles that passed through a lane, 94 vehicles did not have the tag and 60 vehicles did not have minimum amount and this led to congestion,” the MCEPL official cited above said, adding that this led to congestion.

Vikas Mittal, senior manager, National Highways Authority of India, Gurugram, said that all efforts are being made to reduce congestion and improving compliance at the toll plaza. “Additional traffic marshals have been deployed on both sides to manage traffic, availability of tags has been increased. As far as quality of tags is concerned, we have already written letters to the agency concerned to take corrective action,” he said.

Meanwhile, to boost the penetration of SMARTags, the NHAI on Thursday decided to launch a Free FASTag campaign till March 1, waiving off the tag cost of ₹100 at over 770 toll plazas across the country. The authority said that the total penetration of FASTags has reached around 87%, an increase of 7% in two days, with over 100 toll plazas achieving around 90% penetration.