E-Paper
FASTags will be free till Dec 1: Gadkari
New Delhi: FASTags will be given away free from Thursday until December 1 as the government attempts to encourage highway commuters to switch to electronic toll
New Delhi: FASTags will be given away free from Thursday until December 1 as the government attempts to encourage highway commuters to switch to electronic toll payment in an attempt to ease congestion at toll plazas and reduce traffic bottlenecks.
The offer comes 10 days before FASTags, which entail radio frequency identification (RFID) stickers being affixed on the windscreens of vehicles, become compulsory for motorists on national highways. The system, first introduced in 2016, lets toll booths wirelessly and automatically deduct the fee as the vehicles pass through so that they,don’t have to stop to pay the money .
“We will provide FASTags free of cost from today till December 1 across all National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) authorised point of sales,” Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday. “In addition, the security deposit of Rs 150 will also be paid by the Centre. We want to encourage everyone to rush to get their FASTags till the December deadline; else they will be charged double the toll.”
The Centre announced in July that FASTags will become compulsory across national highways starting on December 1.
“The announcement of having 100 % FASTag lanes was made four months ago. I am happy to share that more than 90% toll lanes across all national highways have been made FASTag-compliant,NHAI chairman Sukhbir Singh Sandhu said.
By November 30, 537 toll plazas will have been equipped with the electronic toll collection system, leaving only 17 new plazas that don’t have the infrastructure and will be manned by personnel carrying handheld sets for collecting payments, Sandhu said.
Sandhu added that NHAI has deployed extra security personnel across the toll plazas to ensure that people entering FASTag lanes without the RFID tags pay double the fee. A single lane for cash payment across toll plazas will be kept open in the initial phase of the compulsory rollout, he said.
About 1.1 million FASTags are being sold daily at present, according the transport ministry. In the financial year 2018-19, money collected at toll plazas through FASTags came to Rs 24.396 crore.
“We have established 28,376 point of sales including toll plazas, shopping plazas, most petrol pumps and RTOs {Regional Transport Offices}. Banks also have established POS {point of sales} but their KYC {know-your-customer} requirements are very cumbersome... NHAI ‘s FASTags do not have any KYC requirements and are hence more user-friendly,” Sandhu added.
Gadkari said studies had shown that vehicles waiting at toll plazas contribute heavily to transport costs and pollution.
Across India’s 140,000 kilometres of national highways, toll is being collected on 24,996 kilometres. More than 6.6 million FASTags have been issued until November with an overall cumulative electronic collection of nearly Rs 12,850 crore.
“Our toll income transaction through digital toll placement is currently 39% and slowly we will move towards 100% cashless transactions. We expect NHAI’s earnings to go up to Rs 1 lakh crore per annum. We had offered states to come on board and set up the necessary infrastructure free of charge and thus far eight states have come on board for this,” Gadkari said.
The states that have enabled FASTag usage at state highways are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana.
This is a good initiative. However there may be significant implementation issues, as there are many vehicles which do not have FASTags. If adequate infrastructure is not available at the toll plaza for these vehicles, it may lead to congestion at the toll plazas and inconvenience to the road users,” said Pranavant, a partner at Deloitte India, who uses only one name.
