SRINAGAR: Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday announced that India’s current manual toll collection mechanism will be phased out within a year, making way for a fully electronic system aimed at ensuring uninterrupted travel on national highways.
Addressing the Lok Sabha during Question Hour, Gadkari said the new electronic toll system has already been introduced at 10 locations and will be expanded nationwide over the next year. “This toll system will end. There will be no one to stop you in the name of toll. Within a year, an electronic toll collection will be implemented across the country,” he said.
The minister added that 4,500 highway projects worth Rs 10 lakh crore are presently underway across India.
According to a recent official statement, the National Payments Corporation of India has developed the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme, a unified and interoperable platform for electronic toll payments. The system uses FASTag, an RFID-enabled device affixed to a vehicle’s windscreen, allowing automatic deduction of toll charges from the user’s account without stopping at toll plazas.
