FASTags to be available for free for 15 days

The Centre mandated that all lanes of toll plazas along national highways be declared FASTag lanes by December 15 to reduce bottlenecks along the national highways.

In a bid to increase digital toll collection at highways, the Centre on Wednesday announced that FASTags will be provided free of cost from February 15 to February 29. This applies only to the tags sold by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

FASTag is a radio frequency identification sticker typically fixed to a vehicle’s windscreen that allows the deduction of toll wirelessly and automatically without requiring a vehicle to stop at plazas. (HT file photo)

To purchase the NHAI tag, road users can visit any authorised physical point-of-sale locations with a valid registration certificate of the vehicle. Earlier, the transport ministry had announced free NHAI FASTags from November 22-December 15, 2019.

The Centre mandated that all lanes of toll plazas along national highways be declared FASTag lanes by December 15 to reduce bottlenecks along the national highways. It relaxed rules to allow at least a fourth of the toll plaza lanes to allow cash and FASTags payments for 30 days. That ended on January 15.

On a request from the NHAI, the transport ministry also exempted 65 toll plazas with “high cash transactions” and said one lane each can be used by paying cash also till February 15.

FASTag is a radio frequency identification sticker typically fixed to a vehicle’s windscreen that allows the deduction of toll wirelessly and automatically without requiring a vehicle to stop at plazas.