The government is said to be working on replacing toll plazas with automatic number plate reader cameras that will read the number plates of vehicles and automatically deduct the money from the owner’s bank account. According to the union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari, a pilot plan is already underway.
As per Gadkari, there is one problem — there is no provision under the law to penalise the vehicle owner who skips the toll plaza and does not pay. “We need to bring that provision under the law. We may bring in a provision for cars which do not have these number plates to get them installed within a certain period of time. We will need to bring in a Bill for this,” he added.
FASTags have reduced the average time taken by a vehicle to cross a toll plaza as it takes a mere 47 seconds for a vehicle to pass using a FASTag. That adds up to nearly 260 vehicles processed in an hour. Comparatively, the manual toll collection lane processes 112 vehicles in an hour.
Currently, nearly 97% of the total toll collection in India takes place through FASTags. Out of Rs 40,000 crore, only 3% is collected via cash or card. FASTags were made mandatory on February 16, 2021.
However, there are some shortcomings of FASTags like when users with low balance enter the plaza lanes, it results in congestion. Internet connectivity issues, FASTags not being fixed properly on the vehicle also leads to delays.
With automatic number plate readers, the processing time is expected to fall further, but much will depend on the implementation.
