India To Be Toll Plaza-Free In A Year

Toll plazas across the country would soon be phased out and toll tax would be collected on the basis GPS. Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari said that the new system will come into implementation in the next one year. For this, all the highways would be equipped with CCTV cameras.

Removal of toll plazas would avoid waiting for long which would lead to delay in reaching their destinations.

During the question hour in the Lok Sabha, the Union minister said that over 93 per cent of vehicles in the country were utilising FASTag system. The remaining 7% of the motorists are ready to shell out even double the toll tax but not ready to switch to the new system. A probe by the police has been ordered into the issue, he said. On February 16, 2021, the Centre announced that motorists not using FASTag have to pay double the toll tax.

Gadkari said that there was a chance to evade toll tax if the motorist does not switch to FASTag, the e-payment system which was introduced by the government in 2019.

The Union minister also told the House that more number of people died in road accidents than due to Covid-19. While 1.46 lakh people died due to Coronavirus, over 1.5 lakh people died in road mishaps last year, he informed. A majority of the victims are aged between 18-35 years.

He said that FASTag was being installed for all new vehicles and that the government would get GPS technology installed in all the old vehicles free of cost.

At the same time, he said that motorists can benefit a lot from the vehicle scrapping policy introduced by the Centre. He said that the car manufacturers would be asked to give 5% discount on new vehicles if the motorist showed a certificate of the company that converted his vehicle to scrap. According to the law, vehicles beyond 15 years should be converted into scrap voluntarily by the motorist to avoid pollution.

In addition to the discount, the state governments would be told to give 25 per cent discount on road tax for individual vehicles and 15 per cent discount on commercial vehicles. There is a chance for waiving the registration fee for the new vehicles too, the Union minister said.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said that RFID-enabled FASTags contribute nearly three-fourth of the total toll collection. The daily collection stood at Rs 92 crore compared to Rs 70 crore a year ago.