The Ministry of Finance recently announced that more than 6.19 crore FASTags were issued to vehicles as on December 4, 2022. According to an RTI reply, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) revealed that the total toll collection through FASTag from February 16, 2021 to April 16, 2022 as per NPCI data for NHAI fee plaza stands at Rs 39,118.15 crore, a PTI report said.
For those of you who are still unaware, FASTags are prepaid rechargeable tags which are fixed on the screen of the vehicle allowing automatic payment deduction for toll collection purposes. If you have a FASTag, then you don’t have to stop your vehicle at toll plazas to pay the toll.
The government on the midnight of February 15th/16th had with effect declared all lanes of fee plazas on national highways as FASTag lanes. Now, the Ministry of Finance has revealed that toll collection via FASTag has reached around 98% as of December 4th 2022.
There is no doubt about the fact that implementing FASTags did ease the movement of traffic on national highways, keeping one of the government’s promises. In fact, as per the ministry, the average wait time for a vehicle has been reduced from 8 minutes to just 45 seconds at fee plazas. As per government rules, those who do not have a valid or functional FASTag on their vehicles are supposed to pay double the toll charge as a penalty.
FASTag Penalty
However, the NHAI recently revealed that it has no information about faulty FASTags including the penalties that have been collected from motorists in case their FASTags are non-functional at highway toll plazas, PTI reported. The NHAI in response to RTI queries about the number of faulty FASTags said that it has no such data available.
The PTI report suggested that NHAI’s total toll collection for fee plaza during FY22 stood at Rs 34,535 crore, the RTI reply said, citing data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).