Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said that 90% of toll plazas in India will have FASTag by December 1. FASTag is an RFID sticker for vehicles, that will ensure toll gets collected when the vehicles are in motion. Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) contains the driver’s information which uses electromagnetic frequency to detect the tag.
Nitin Gadkari said, “90 percent of the toll lanes have been made FASTag compliant.” Addressing the issue of a double toll for a cash payment of a toll, Gadkari clarified that “The vehicles entering the cash lane will not be penalized. From December 1, all but one lane will become FASTag lanes. Passing through these lanes would result in payment of double the toll amount as penalty.”
If you have the FASTag on your windshield, you will be allowed to pass quickly without the usual halt you used to bare. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will provide FASTags free of cost until December 1 to encourage vehicle owners to move towards FAStags. It will also be available free of cost by NHAI at RTO offices and transport hubs. The security deposit of Rs. 150 will be borne by NHAI. Gadkari said this would approximately cost the government Rs 150-200 crore.
They are not new in India, have been in Indis since December 2017. According to the National Payments Corporation of India, 6 million FASTags have already been issued.
While the FASTags have been made available free of cost, the owner needs to link it to his bank account to pay the toll amount.
“When a vehicle passes through a toll, an SMS with date, time and place of the transaction will be sent to the owner of the vehicle. The master data of all transactions will be with the concessionaire of the toll booth concerned, along with the bank with which the owner has registered the FASTag and the National Payments Corporation of India,” said officials.
However, it is important to remember that there are privacy concerns with FASTag. Touted to be the Aadhaar for vehicles, Gadkari had said it can track all the movements of a vehicle. “Cameras at toll booths will take photos of passengers in a vehicle, which will be useful for the Ministry of Home Affairs as there will be a record of a vehicle’s movement,” he had earlier said.