With an electronic tag attached on vehicles, four-wheelers can soon zip past multiple toll plazas on national highways without any stopping. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has initiated a project to install electronic toll collection (ETC) system in at least one lane at all toll plazas on national highways by end of 2014.
The Ministry will issue common toll plaza cards to allow frequent road users to cross toll plazas in 138 locations across the country without wasting time in queues. Frequent highway users will have to fit radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag on the windshields of their vehicles. The system in place at the toll plazas will read and debit the amount in the card allowing them a near-nonstop and easy movement.
“All the National Highways will have ETC system in at least one lane in all toll plazas to allow quick movement of vehicles with the electronic tag attached on the windshield of the vehicle,” said Vijay Chhibber, secretary, MoRTH.
“Once the system is in place, drivers can zoom across national highways with automatic, electronic toll payment without having to stop and pay cash to toll booths. Besides saving manpower, time and hassle of waiting in queues, this method will bring in more accountability and efficiency in the toll collection processes,” he said.There are 374 toll plazas in the country. Out of these, 164 are under BOT (Toll), 138 are under public funded and 72 are on bridges.“We have already placed orders to install electronic toll plazas at 20 public-funded roads. They will be implemented in the remaining toll plazas soon,” said Chhibber.
The Government has also issued orders to incorporate ETC lane as a mandatory clause in the contracts awarded for all the highways projects. According to officials in the Ministry, necessary amendments have already been made in the Central Motor Vehicle Rule, 1989 for fitting RFID tag on vehicles for ETC.For implementing ETC on pan India basis, a new company Indian Highways Management Company limited (IHMCl) with equity participation from NHAI (25%), Concessionaires (50%) and Financial Institutions (25%) has already been constituted.
A pilot project on interoperability of ETC system at 10 toll plazas between Mumbai (Charoti) and Ahmadabad has already been tested and successfully operational at present. National Highways collected Rs 11,387 crore as toll in fiscal 2013-14. Of this, Rs 3,398 crore was collected on public or Government-funded roads.