All toll plazas in India will be converted to FASTags by November: Nitin Gadkari

Come this November, all the vehicles in India plying on the roads without electronic toll collection tags would not get approval to cross the toll plaza, according to Nitin Gadkari, Road Transport and Highway Minister.

Within four months all toll plazas will be converted to FASTags and the use of this technology will be made mandatory, said Gadkari in the Lok Sabha adding that people must pay the toll if they wish to see good roads.

Though, he did not clarify on penalty in case of non-compliance.

It is already present on new cars and those who do not have the sticker will not be able to get past the toll plaza, he added.

FASTags, launched in January, is basically a device that enables commuter to drive through toll plazas by employing radio frequency identification technology for making toll payments directly from the accounts linked to it.

The electronic scanner placed at toll plaza checks the vehicle's RFID (a sticker on the front left windscreen) and automatically deducts the toll amount.

FASTags will be available at petrol pumps and might be used as cards for buying petrol and paying parking fees.

In India, there are currently about 450 FASTags toll plazas on national and state highways. There are still many important routes which do not have FASTags collection system. The absence of electronic toll collection tags most of the time lead to delay for commuters. These tags are accepted across India since 2017.

In may, e-comm marketplace Amazon had started selling FASTags online. It is part of the Govt digital drive to enhance transparency and promote cashless transactions.

In the last five years, Gadkari emphasized that the govt has made over 40,000 km of roads in the country.