FASTag sale crosses 1 crore, government steps up awareness campaign

NEW DELHI: The sale of FASTags has crossed one crore mark, Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday while announcing his ministry will carry out massive campaign to make people aware about the new system of collecting toll.

"The penetration of FASTag has touched 46 per cent and I am confident of the share coming close to 100% in the next few weeks," Gadkari said while launching the campaign. He claimed more use of FASTag will reduce traffic jam at toll plazas and even the speed of traffic movement will increase at least four times at plazas.

He admitted that there are some difficulties in the initial days of the full roll out of FASTag, but the problems will be solved. Union road transport secretary Sanjeev Ranjan said the number of transactions through FASTag has increased to 20 lakh per day and once this figure increases further, there will be savings worth over Rs 1,000 crore in terms of fuel wastage, loss of man hour and congestion.


NHAI chairman SS Sandhu said the toll collection has been increasing as now leakage of the revenue is not possible. He admitted that commuters have always complained about congestion at toll plazas. "Let me admit that even I as a commuter used to feel bad about the congestion at plazas. People say while the government is charging toll they still have to face problem of congestion and pollution. The FASTag roll out is to bring relief to people and make the travel smooth," Sandhu said.

He claimed that NHAI has been monitoring 523 toll plazas round the clock.