Vehicles crawl through toll plaza as FASTags come into force

Gurugram Long queues of vehicles thronged the Kherki Daula toll plaza on the first day of mandatory introduction of the automatic toll collection system through

Gurugram Long queues of vehicles thronged the Kherki Daula toll plaza on the first day of mandatory introduction of the automatic toll collection system through FASTags on Sunday. The situation is likely to worsen on Monday, with the traffic expected to increase by 25-30%, from the weekend, said officials.

HT Image

From midnight, eight lanes on the Jaipur-Delhi side and 11 lanes on Delhi-Jaipur side were converted into FASTag-only lanes, said officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Kherki Daula toll plaza has 25 toll lanes, of which six were retained as cash lanes, as per the directions of the highway ministry.

Vehicles started lining up from 9am, extending up to at least one kilometre on each side. Officials said the situation continued until evening. As many as 30 additional police officials were deployed to manage the vehicular flow, whereas the highway operator also deployed 70 additional staff members, who attempted to segregate the traffic around 300 metres from the toll plaza.

With only three lanes accepting cash on either side of the toll plaza, vehicles started piling up as the majority of them did not have the FASTags. Large-scale deployment of traffic personnel and marshals did not help, as drivers of some vehicles refused to pay the double penalty, while a few others threatened to leave their vehicle at toll. In some cases, RFID readers could not read the new FASTags.

As many as 1,547 commuters had to pay double the toll as they had accessed the FASTag lanes without a FASTag.

“Despite most of the vehicle owners being told that they have to cough out a penalty for not having FASTags, the drivers started arguing and even threatened to leave their vehicles on the road. Throughout the day, we witnessed these incidents and this led to slow movement of vehicles,” said Rajender Bhati, toll plaza manager.

The failure of the RFID readers was reported from multiple lanes, due to which toll collectors had to call for hand-held machines to process the bar code. In some cases, vehicle owners had a valid FASTag, but it either had not been activated by the bank or there was not enough money in the account to pay for the toll. “Several such incidents took place and it is likely there will be a repeat on Monday, which is likely to get even more chaotic. We are making arrangements but keeping our fingers crossed,” said Kripal Singh, spokesperson, Skylark, the highway operator.

An employee of Millennium City Expressway Private Limited (MCEPL), the concessionaire for the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, said that around 72,000 vehicle pay toll on weekdays at the plaza, while the average on weekends is around 55,000. “The big issue is that almost 60,000 vehicles pay cash at this toll and a majority of these have still not taken the FASTags. Although over 1 lakh FASTags have been sold in Gurugram alone, these are primarily being used by commuters to enter Delhi,” a toll plaza official said, on the condition of anonymity.

Pyare Lal, zonal officer, traffic, Kherki Daula toll plaza, said, “The traffic situation was tough. We managed it today (Sunday), but the picture will become clearer on Monday,” he said.

The commuters, meanwhile, criticised the authorities for failing to ensure smooth movement on the FASTag lanes. “I have been waiting to cross the toll plaza for more than 20 minutes. I had got it 15 days ago. What is the use if the rules are not implemented strictly?” said Shailender Purohit, a Sector 93 resident.

Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI, said that they had increased cash lanes temporarily on both sides, but the vehicle owners will have to get the FASTags without delay. “We are monitoring the situation. More hand-held machines have been deployed, but there will not be any more relaxation on FASTags,” he said.

The highway operator and the NHAI are also planning to tweak the hand-held machines so that penalty can be levied while in the queue. NHAI officials also said that they have taken up the issue of wrong turns before the toll plaza with Gurugram traffic police, to ensure this doesn’t cause jams.

Rush to buy tags

Long queues were witnessed at the counters set up by banks and other agencies to distribute FASTags. Many buyers said that the activation of a single FASTag was taking half an hour, and they had to wait for a while to get the RFID tags.

Rahul Kadian, who was travelling from Dwarka, said that he had been waiting for an hour in the line but there has been little movement so far. “The NHAI should have made these available at its offices in Sirhaul and Dwarka as well. I applied for a FASTag on November 29 with the bank, but nothing happened,” he said.

A few of them claimed that they had come to buy the FASTags on Saturday as well, but could not get one. “I hope I get one today, otherwise I will have to pay the penalty,” a commuter said.