govinfoadmin
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has launched a new scheme for expressway commuters. The scheme is called as NHAI Pay as you travel scheme. The scheme brings relief to the expressway commuters as they just have to pay toll tax only for the distance they traveled on the toll expressway. The scheme is applicable only for expressways and not for highways and other roads.
The Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) and other expressways will be fitted with GPS devices which will calculate the distance traveled by the vehicle. Based on the distance traveled the system at the Toll booth will use FASTag to automatically deduct the toll amount.
Earlier people were paying for entire stretch of the expressway no matter how much distance they were actually using the expressway. Now with the NHAI Pay as you travel scheme they just need to pay only for the distance they used the expressway. It is expected to bring huge relief for the commuters who travels very minimal distances on the expressways.
NHAI Pay as you travel scheme: NHAI to charge toll amount only for the distance traveled by the commuter on the expressways in India.
NHAI Pay as you travel scheme: Highways
- The scheme Pay as you use was announced by the Finance Minister Arun Jeitley during the Budget 2018-19
- The scheme will be available only on the few expressways to start with and later on will be expanded to the all the expressways across India and other toll roads as well
- The first implementation will be at the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE), the 135-kilometer e’way circling around Delhi
- The EPE will be inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India Shree Narendra Modi on 29th April
- The second one is going to be Delhi-Mumbai expressway
- The EPE and other expressways will be fitted with GPS tracking system to calculate the distance traveled by the vehicle
- The Tolling system at the booth will use Fastag to automatically deducting the toll charges
- Rs. 65,000 crores are collected by the NHAI everyday as Toll tax
Following expressways are expected to implement Pay as you travel scheme soon:
- Delhi-Jaipur,
- Delhi-Chandigarh,
- Vadodara-Mumbai,
- Delhi-Meerut,
- Bangalore-Chennai,
- Kolkata-Dhanbad and
- Delhi-Agra
The Union Ministry of road transport and highways is preparing for following expressways to implement Pay as you travel scheme too in near future;
- Delhi-Katra (via Ludhiana),
- Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Amravathi (HVA),
- Nagpur-Hyderabad-Bengaluru (NHB),
- Kanpur-Lucknow and ring road at Amravathi
What is FASTag: A FASTag is a radio-frequency identification (RFID) enabled tag. It is usually pasted on the vehicle’s windscreen. It is linked to a prepaid bank or mobile wallet account from which the amount is automatically deducted at the tool booth when the vehicle passes through the toll booth.
- It was launched in 2016
- Saves time as vehicles with FASTag doent need to stop at the tool booths and in long queues to pay tool tax
- Toll money is automatically deducted from the linked bank account / mobile vallet
- People are adopting to the FASTag
- In December 2016 there were 60,000 vehicles who were using FASTag
- Now more than 10 lakh vehicles has FASTag
- Class ‘M’ & Class ‘N’ vehicles are already sold with FASTag
