Electronic tolling across 300 NH from April 1

Users will get a discount, while issuing banks and developers too will get a certain percentage of the collections.

Electronic tolling will start across 300 national highways (NH) from April 1 with users getting 10 per cent of discount on toll charges for the first year.

The discount will taper over in the subsequent years.

With the annual national highway toll collection at about ₹18,000 crore, users can rake up benefits of up to ₹1,800 crore, if all the users were to migrate to the electronic toll collection mechanism.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) expects the project to take off with the users getting a discount and issuing banks getting a certain percentage of collections from toll fee as well as the developers.

E-tolling system to become operational at over 300 plazas from April 1

In the remaining 57 toll plazas spread across National Highways, electronic toll collection can be done by handheld devices.

Tags from banks

Tags will be sold from April 1 at outlets as selected by banks. Tags will also be sold online. State Bank of India, ICICI and Axis are the first lot of banks to sell the tags and tags will be inter-operable.

Other banks can also join in by adhering to some of the system requirements.

This was shared by Raghav Chandra, Chairman, NHAI.

The banks, which issue the tag will get 1.5 per cent of the electronic toll revenue every time a user uses the tag.

Clearing mechanism

Similarly, banks who sell the technology to each toll plaza – called the acquirer bank – will also get a fee of 1.25 per cent every time an electronic toll collection is used.

This was explained by RC Palekar, CEO, Indian Highways Management Corporation Limited, on the sidelines of an NHAI conference. The amount will be credited into the developers’ bank account within 24 hours of toll collection. “National Payment Corporation of India is setting the clearing house mechanism. TCS is helping set up the clearing house solution,” said Chandra.

Vehicle overloading

To control overloading of vehicles, the NHAI Chairman has set a target of having weigh-in-motion bridges at the remaining 60 per cent of toll plazas by June 30 this year.

Meanwhile, several developers and toll operators complained about lack of support from State authorities in their efforts to curb overloaded vehicles, or people unwilling to pay toll charges at the toll plazas.

Source: http://goo.gl/QmoLQt