The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will give out FASTags free of cost and also remove the security deposit in order to promote switch over to the cashless seamless transaction system for vehicles.
NHAI will distribute these free tags till December 1 at various points of sale (PoS) at several toll plazas in the country. The tags can also be purchased at the PoS established by banks.
The FASTags will be mandatory from December 1 and non-FASTag users will have to pay double for travelling through a FASTag lane.
FASTag is a RFID chip based system which allows users to ply through toll gates without stopping. The tags are wirelessly read by sensors and the toll fee is electronically deducted from the connected bank or prepaid account.
Around 90 per cent of the 537 toll plazas in India are equipped with the electronic toll collection (ETC) system infrastructure.