The Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) through FASTag has been more than Rs 5,000 crore per month during the financial year 2023-24 with around 98.5% of toll collected through the medium, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said in its annual report for the last financial year.
“As on March 31, 2024, collectively banks have issued over 8.81 crore FASTags. The average daily collection through ETC has increased to Rs 190.68 crore with penetration of 98.5% in total fee collection. There are 1,365 National Highways (NH) and State Highways fee plazas with ETC infrastructure in all lanes,” the report said.
Until August 2023, the percentage of ETC penetration was 98% that improved to 99% after that.
The total toll collection during the last financial year was more than Rs 64,000 crore, as per the report. The highest toll collected in a month was in March 2024 at Rs 5,911 crore, while the lowest was in July 2023 at Rs 4,966.07 crore, the report shows.
During the previous financial year, as per the last annual reports, the highest amount was collected in December 2022 at Rs 4,918.4 crore. Before that, it was only Rs 3,674.98 crore in December 2021.
Over the years, there has been a consistent improvement in toll collection on national highways. The main reason was migration from manual toll collection to electronic — FASTag. Other reasons that contributed to the increase in toll collection included traffic growth, revision in user fee rates, and the addition of new tollable road length.
MoRTH data shows that toll collection on national highways across India has risen around three times between 2015-16 and 2022-23 – from Rs 17,759.12 crore to Rs 48,028.22 crore.
The annual report added that the constant growth and adoption of FASTag by highway users is very encouraging and has helped increase efficiency in toll operations.
“In order to ensure seamless movement of traffic through fee plazas and increase transparency in collection of user fee using FASTag, the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme, the flagship initiative of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, has been implemented on pan-India basis. The National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) is the Central Clearing House (CCH). There are forty (40) banks (including public and private sector banks) engaged as issuer banks for FASTag issuance to road users and fourteen (14) Acquirer banks to process the transactions at fee plazas,” the Ministry said.
The Government had mandated fitment of FASTag in M&N Categories motor vehicles sold on and after December 1, 2017. Category ‘M’ stands for a motor vehicle with at least four wheels used for carrying passengers. Category ‘N’ stands for a motor vehicle with at least four wheels used for carrying goods, which may also carry persons in addition to goods.
To further promote fee payment through digital mode, reduce waiting time and fuel consumption, and provide for seamless passage through fee plazas, the Government has declared all lanes of the fee plazas on National Highways to be FASTag lanes from the midnight of 15 /16 February, 2021.
Further, last month the Ministry has announced that the national highway users who are deliberately not fixing FASTag on the windscreens of their vehicles will have to pay double the user fee if they enter the toll lanes. The ministry explained that deliberate non-affixation of FASTag on the windscreen leads to unnecessary delays at the toll plazas, causing inconvenience to fellow national highway users.
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