FASTag at highway tolls double in December

Mumbai: Transactions made through FASTag devices have more than doubled in the month of December after government’s push to make them mandatory for toll collections at the highway booths.

About 6.4 crore transactions FASTag transactions worth Rs.1256 crore was processed in December as against 3.4 crore transactions worth Rs.774 crore in November, the latest National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data released on Wednesday showed. A total of three crore 3.1 crore transactions worth Rs.703 crore in October was processed by NPCI’s electronic toll clearance channels called the NETC.

FASTags are electronically activated radio frequency identification stickers, which was introduced by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (MoRTH) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2014 to facilitate cashless collection of tolls at highway checkpoints.

The government earlier had made it mandatory for owners four wheelers to have these stickers deployed on their windshields, failing which they’d have to pay double toll at the payment plazas.Since December 15, while all toll lanes have been converted to FASTag lanes, NHAI has allowed a leeway for commuters to accept toll through cash and FASTags in around 25% of lanes at every toll plaza. This was done as per a directive from the transport ministry to ease the transition phase.

But from January 15, only one hybrid lane for both cash and electronic transactions will be allowed.

These stickers are generally deployed on the vehicles’ windshields to enable commuters to roll out toll payments on the move without halting at the collection booths.

As per data released by the government last week, about 1.15 crore FASTags have been sold by the banks to date. The use of these devices is largely expected to phase out the use of cash at toll points and significantly reduce the waiting time on toll ‘queues’ as the collection mechanism will become automated.