The ministry of road transport and highways has confirmed that all lanes at toll plazas of national highways will be converted to Fastag lanes from today midnight (15th/16th February 2021). The ministry notified of the rule being implemented, vehicles not fitted with Fastags, or non-functional Fastag into toll plazas will be charged a toll fee equivalent to two times the fee applicable to that category. The implementation of Fastags was scheduled to be mandatory from January 1, 2021. However, the date was pushed till February 15 in order to allow people time to have their vehicles fitted with the RFID tags.
Additionally, from April 1, 2021, Fastags will also become mandatory for vehicles to renew their third-party vehicle insurance as well. The implementation of Fastags is being done as the Indian government is trying to promote cashless transactions with digital payments and also reduce waiting time at toll plazas.
In the past, toll plazas on national highways featured a handful of lanes dedicated to RFID cashless transaction users, while a majority were cash lanes. In order to dissuade cash transactions, the Indian government had altered toll plazas to offer a single cash lane, while converting all other lanes as Fastag only. Now, all the lanes at the toll plazas will be Fastag lanes and they will charge double the rate for anyone who wishes to pay by cash.
Fastags were made mandatory for all new four-wheelers and commercial vehicles sold from December 2017. Now all older vehicles plying on the road will be required to use Fastags only.
