Mandatory FASTag for highways will help save Rs 20,000 crore per annum on fuel and boost the revenue by at least Rs 10,000 crore, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday.
Launching a live monitoring system to assess the live condition at toll plazas pan India and releasing a rating system for highways here, the road transport and highways minister said this was a step towards achieving perfection in terms of highway use, construction, and quality.
“Making FASTags mandatory for highway users for collection of electronic toll has significantly reduced delays at toll plazas. This will result in a significant saving to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore per annum on fuel cost,” Gadkari said while addressing the media.
The minister said not only this, the electronic toll collection is set to boost royalty by 10,000 crores per annum.
Following the mandatory payment of user fee through FASTag at toll plazas from February 16, 2021, toll collection has seen consistent growth, and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said its daily toll collection through FASTag has reached about Rs 104 crore.
Gadkari said a new GPS-based system for tolling is in the offing, where highway commuters will be required to pay only for the distance traveled on the basis of entry and exit points.
He, however, clarified that the system will take two years to be introduced.
After the introduction of e-tolling in December 2016, the toll plazas covered under it reached 794 on February 28 from 403 toll plazas in March 2018.
Gadkari said through live monitoring of toll plazas, one can not only access the live situation at the particular toll plazas, including delays but will get a history of the traffic and an almost realistic forecast of the traffic situation.