New Delhi: Get your FASTag pasted on the windscreen of your vehicle immediately or it may get blacklisted by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) soon.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has announced a crackdown on ‘loose FASTags’ that defeat the whole purpose of uninterrupted flow of traffic on National Highways, even through toll plazas.
The data loaded on the FASTag, gets automatically captured by a scanner just as the vehicle approaches the toll booth, provided it is affixed to the windscreen. The system then checks the details in seconds and allows the vehicle to pass after deducting the toll from the e-wallet.
However, there are some who carry their FASTags in their wallets or glove compartments of the vehicles. These have to be be physically displayed for the scanner to capture the data and send it to the system to process. Valuable seconds get wasted.
“If one considers 100 vehicles doing this, about 10 minutes could be lost. This defeats the whole purpose. Hence, it has been decided to take strict action against those with ‘loose FASTags’. The toll collection agencies and concessionaires will now collect details of such FASTags and send them to us. They will eventually get blacklisted, causing problems for the vehicle owner,” an official said.
According to him, this ‘tag-in-hand’ system will have to be addressed to prevent lane congestion, false chargebacks, and misuse in closed-loop tolling systems.
This decision comes ahead of the rollout of new systems like the Annual Pass and Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) tolling. With the penetration rate of FASTag exceeding 98%, this initiative aims to make toll operations more efficient, ensuring seamless and comfortable journeys for National Highway users.
“This will not affect those who have affixed their FASTags to the windscreens. However, we would still advice all to monitor the FASTag wallet to ensure that the balance does not drop beyond a certain point. The initiative is meant to make toll operations more efficient, ensuring seamless and comfortable journeys for m National Highway users,” the official added.
