Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Nitin Gadkari inaugurated a conference on ‘One Nation One Tag – FASTag’ in New Delhi on Monday, to roll out the process for having a unified electronic system across the country. The Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Gen. (Retd.) V.K Singh and ministers and senior officials from several states were also present on the occasion.
Under the National Electronic Toll Collection programme of the Ministry, toll collection at national highways toll plazas is done through RFID based FASTags. However, collection at state highways toll plazas is done either manually or through other tags. This leads to inconvenience for the road users. The Ministry is therefore encouraging states to come onboard FASTag, so that seamless movement of transport can be assured across the nation. For this, Scheme Guidelines for Inclusion of Sate/ City Toll Plaza under NETC programme (FASTag) was circulated to all states by Indian Highways Management Corp Ltd (IHMCL). The Scheme offers participating state authorities/agencies shorter turnaround time by allowing them to be a part of the robust FASTag solution architecture which already supports approx. 6 million tags with approximately daily 10 lakh transactions. Under the scheme IHMCL is providing financial assistance for 50% of the CAPEX cost of installation of ETC infrastructure at two lanes on each toll plaza subject to a maximum of Rs 20 lakh and also bear part of the ETC programme management fee.
IHMCL exchanged MoUs with several states/ authorities for integrating with FASTag. The move assumes special significance due to the fact that from 1st of December this year, toll collections on all National Highways will mandatorily be done through FASTag only.
Another MoU was signed today – between IHMCL and GST Network (GSTN) for integrating E-Way Bill system with FASTag. This has been done with a view to overcoming the existing challenge in track and trace mechanism for GST E-Way Bill (EWB) System and enhance the efficiency in its monitoring. This integration would become mandatory on an all India basis from April 2020. This will allow for more efficient track and trace system for the GST E-Way Bill System, and check the leakage of revenue at the toll plazas. With this integration revenue authorities will be able to track the goods vehicles to see whether they are actually travelling to the specified destination. The supplier/ transporter will also be able to track their vehicles through SMS alerts generated at each toll plaza.
Speaking on the occasion, Gadkari said in this system the same FASTag affixed on the windscreen of a vehicle can be used to pay toll across all toll plazas in the country. This initiative will remove bottlenecks and ensure seamless movement of traffic and efficient collection of user fee. He said, this is likely to reduce the nation’s GDP loss by bringing down loss of fuel while waiting at toll plazas. This measure is both time saving, as also controls pollution substantially. The Minister announced that very soon, nobody will be required to wait at toll plazas anywhere in the country.
The Minister further said that efforts are being carried out to enable usage of FASTag for making various vehicle related payments apart from toll payments, such as fuel payment, parking charges, etc. He said that the FASTag is being positioned as the ‘Aadhaar’ for a vehicle.
At present, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is functioning as the Central Clearing House and 23 Public and Private sector banks are issuing FASTag. A cashback of 2.5% is being offered for the FY 2019-20 in order to incentivize road users for usage of FASTag. FASTag is acceptable across over 490 National Highways toll plazas and selected 39+ State highways toll plazas. More than 6 Million FASTag were issued till last month, with overall cumulative ETC collection of over Rs 12,850 Crore since inception. The total cumulative number of successful ETC transactions carried out is over 5540.67 lakhs as in September 2019.
IHMCL and NHAI have developed the My FASTag mobile App to provide a single one-stop solution to FASTag customers. The App helps linking of bank neutral FASTag to bank account of customer’s choice. An NHAI Prepaid Wallet was also launched today, giving customers the choice of not linking their FASTag to their bank accounts. Other features of the App include UPI recharge of bank specific FASTag – More than 80% of FASTag issued can be recharged with this facility, single portal for customer login page for issuer banks, Search for nearby Point-of-Sale location by various banks and IHMCL, List of Operational Toll Plazas under NETC programme, and Customer Support Toll-Free numbers.
