FASTag: Here’s how to buy, activate it
Ensure that your FASTag linked bank account has sufficient balance to allow for toll payments. FASTag will become mandatory for all vehicles, private and commercial.
FASTags will become mandatory for all vehicles, private and commercial, from December 1, 2019. These are currently issued by 22 certified banks through various channels such as Point-of-Sale (POS) at National Highway toll plazas and bank branches. Nitin Gadkari, the Road Transport and Highways Minister, has announced that FASTag will become mandatory for all vehicles, private and commercial, from December 1, 2019. And according to an Economic Times report, vehicles without FASTags will have to now pay up twice the normal rate at toll gates across the country.
FASTags are prepaid rechargeable tags for toll collection that allow automatic payment deduction from the FASTag, they are normally affixed on the windscreen of your vehicle. With the help of a FASTag, you will not have to stop your vehicle at toll plazas to pay the toll. As soon as the vehicle crosses the toll plaza, the toll fee will get deducted from the bank account/prepaid wallet linked to the FASTag affixed on the vehicle’s windscreen. An activated FASTtag works on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Moreover, these FASTags do not have any expiry date, that is, they can be used as long as they are readable at the toll plaza and are not tampered.
FASTags are issued by 22 certified banks through various channels such as Point-of-Sale (POS) at National Highway toll plazas and select bank branches. They are also available on e-commerce platform such as Amazon.
a) Self-Activation: FASTags are ‘bank-neutral’, that is, no bank is pre-assigned to the FASTag at the time you purchase it from a POS terminal or online platform. The online FASTag is based on the concept of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) where you can self-activate it by entering vehicle details.
FASTag issued by certified banks can charge maximum of Rs 100 for each tag, which is fixed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). However, the actual tag issuing charges are defined by the bank and may vary from bank to bank.
If the FASTag is already linked with your bank account, then there is no need to load money separately in a prepaid wallet. You only need to ensure that your FASTag-linked bank account has sufficient balance to allow for toll payments. However, if you have linked the FASTag to a prepaid wallet (NHAI prepaid wallet), then it can be recharged through various channels such as payment through cheque or through UPI/debit card/ credit card/ NEFT/ Net Banking. Also, additional charges will be levied while recharging the FASTag account through different channels.
1) For limited KYC FASTag account holder.
You cannot use one FASTag with two or more vehicles, you will have to buy two separate FASTags for the two vehicles and so on.
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