New Delhi: With a view to decongest toll plazas on highways across the country, the government is planning to declare all lanes of National Highway fee plazas as ‘FASTag Lanes’ by 1st December 2019 except one lane on both side which will be kept as hybrid lane.
For making this transition smooth, the NHAI has started to distribute free FASTags on all highways from today. They will be given free to people till 1st December. Even the security deposit of the FASTag of Rs 150 will be borne by NHAI.
Even though the FASTags will be given for free, users will have to refill and top-up the card with their own money. An additional 2,000 kms of National Highways will be have been brought under tolling system in April-September period of this year.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had announced 1st December as deadline to convert all toll lanes across the country into electronic toll collection.
NHAI has arranged Point Of Sale (PoS) on numerous fee plazas in the country. About 27,000 PoS has been set up by NHAI and banks in the country for sale of FASTags.
About 540 toll plazas currently have electronic toll collecting system.
NHAI has collected Rs 24,400 crore as toll fees in the last fiscal. It had collected Rs 14,000 crore toll charges in 2014-15.