Akhilesh Srivastava?s FASTag Project Reaches One-Million Mark

Posted by rahulreddy on May 3rd, 2018

The Chief General Manager (CGM) of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Akhilesh Srivastava, at an event said that the number of vehicles registered with FASTags has crossed the one-million mark, which is a five-fold increase since the previous year. The same experienced a rapid growth after the Government of India made it mandatory to integrate the stickers to every purchased car after December 01st 2017.

The usage of FASTags at Toll lanes has increased by 15 percent. The NHAI has set a target to provide FASTags to 5 million vehicles by December 2018. FASTag allows motorists to pay Toll fee electronically which is great because it cuts down the time that one would take in paying the toll tax manually and even promotes the decongestion of traffic at the toll booths. It also promotes transparency in the entire process of tax collection and restricts any kind of fraudulent practices at the toll booths.

Cutting down the traffic congestion at Toll lanes, FASTag, which are Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags affixed on vehicles, automatically deducts the Toll tax when a motorist passes through the gate. Further, FASTag stickers will save the time taken by commuters to pay the Toll bill and allows commuters to travel effortlessly. Apart from these, recent updates suggest that Akhilesh Srivastava is working to ensure the implementation of at least one lane dedicated to the electronic toll tax collection at every toll booth around the country. He is currently working to administer these changes along with the implementation of more Highway Nest and Highway Nest (mini) across the various toll booths in the country.

The NHAI, with the help of the Government of India, is planning to make digital payment mandatory in the near future. The move will not only reduce traffic congestion at Toll complexes but also will bring transparency to Toll operations. Drawing inspiration from developed nations where nearly 80 percent of commuters pay their toll invoice electronically, the Central government and the NHAI are planning to implement the same in India.

In order to fix a few issues in electronic toll payments, the NHAI is planning to build features such as crediting instant discounts to the tag users and encourage manufacturers to affix FASTag stickers to vehicles in the production stage itself instead of mandating dealers to do so.

NHAI CGM Akhilesh Srivastava is heading a highway-modernisation cluster project. According to Srivastava, he firmly believes in harnessing the power of technology to address road and highway operations and implementing the same in his projects.

Besides easing Toll payments, the FASTag-enabled ETC model will also reduce the halting time at Toll gates, minimise managerial efforts, bring transparency to monetary transactions, and reduce fuel consumption. The one-million FASTag sales is a great start towards the digitalisation of the highway sector.

Complementing the Centre’s Digital India initiative, FASTag stickers will enhance Toll operations and ease the commuter’s journey. The CGM of the NHAI is monitoring the process and progress of FASTag across in the country.