NewDelhi, December 14: A day before the deadline for only electronic payment at toll booths on national highways through FASTags, the Centre has once again extended the date by a month over a ‘shortage of supply’ of the radio frequency identification (RFID) sticker.
The Centre had earlier mandated all lanes of national highways toll plazas to be declared as ‘FASTag lanes’ by December 15, in a move aimed to reduce bottlenecks.
Its earlier deadline was December 1 but deferred to December 15 to give more time to citizens to buy and put FASTag on their vehicles.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in a letter to the ministry of road transport and highways, a copy of which has been reviewed by Hindustan Times, has sought an extension of 45 days for the conversion of all lanes to FASTag lanes.
The authority said there was a deficit in the supply the tags after the Centre’s announcement of giving them free of cost till December 15.
‘It has been realised that the chip used in the RFID tag is imported which has a lead time of 6 weeks and the average total production capacity of all manufacturers is in the range of 30-50,000 per day,’ NHAI wrote.
‘The banks and other selling platform supply of FASTag is contingent upon the production capacity and at present approximately 18 lakh tags inventory is available in the market. With lead time due to the import of the chip and subsequent production of the tag, there is a supply deficit in the market and all citizens have not been able to obtain FASTag,’ it said.
FASTag, the RFID sticker typically fixed to a vehicle’s windscreen, lets toll booths wirelessly and automatically deduct the fee so that drivers do not have to stop.
In its response to NHAI’s letter, the transport ministry said it will grant an extension of 30 days.
‘Considering the request of NHAI and further that citizens are not put to inconvenience, to tide over the issues raised for the period of next 30 days, it is decided that depending on the traffic pile-up at high traffic volume fee plazas, not more than 25% ‘FASTaglane of Fee Plaza’ may be temporarily converted to hybrid lanes,’ the ministry said.
The hybrid lanes, as per NHAI, will be kept to enable cash payment at the toll plazas. To be clear, as per Centre’s order all lanes except one were to be converted to FASTag lanes.
The ministry said an evaluation of such cases has to be every day to take necessary corrective action and also asked for a summary report on a daily basis.
‘It should be ensured that the least possible number of the declared ‘FASTag lane of Fee Plaza’ be converted into the hybrid lanes temporarily…it is clarified that it is a temporary measure to e adopted for 30 days only to facilitate smooth flow of traffic so that no inconvenience is caused to the citizens, ‘ the ministry wrote.
NHAI said it has fully prepared its fees plazas with requisite Electronic Toll Collection infrastructure in all 523 fee plazas—except four, which were to be ready before December 15.
‘We conducted trial runs in all lanes at all fee plazas, appointed Nodal Officers at each fee plazas…undertook lane planning with the suitable deployment of marshals, took state administration on board for all necessary assistance and created numerous options for sale of FAStags through banks, NHAI’s Point of Sale, fuel stations, common service centres, RTOs, Amazon etc,’ it said.
To be clear, NHAI said in its letter that users entering FASTag lanes without the tags will not be charged double toll over the next 45 days.
‘It will be the endeavour of NHAI that all lanes, except one, are declared as FASTag lane within 45 days from December 15, 2019, and once the same is achieved, thereafter, NHAI will start charging user fee equivalent of two times the applicable fee, if non-FASTag fitted enters the permanent ‘FASTag lane’ under the provision of the fee rules.’
