‘One Vehicle, One FASTag’ norm starts by NHAI

NEW DELHI : For seamless vehicular movement at the Toll Plazas across the country, the state-owned National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) ‘One Vehicle, One FASTag’ norm has come into force from April 1.

The new norm aims to discourage the use of a single FASTag for several vehicles or linking multiple FASTags to a particular vehicle. Earlier, NHAI had extended the ‘One Vehicle, One FASTag’ initiative compliance deadline to March-end, given the problems faced by Paytm FASTag users.

“Multiple FASTags won’t work… People who have multiple FASTags for one vehicle won’t be able to use all of them from today (April 1),” the official told PTI.

NHAI’s initiative has come against the backdrop of several reports of multiple FASTags being issued for a particular vehicle and FASTags being used without KYC in violation of RBI’s mandate. Further, drivers sometimes deliberately do not place FASTags on windshields causing toll plaza delays, inconveniencing other highway users

FASTag is an electronic toll collection system in India, operated by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). It encompasses a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for making toll payments directly from the prepaid or savings account linked to it or directly toll owner.

Revolutionising the electronic toll collection system in India, FASTag has a penetration rate of around 98 percent and over 8 crore users around the country.

Notably, Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) through FASTag has also witnessed constant growth over the last few years. It includes toll collection via FASTag on fee plazas, including State Highway fee plazas’s Rs. 50,855 crore collection in calendar year 2022, an approx. 46% increase as compared to Rs. 34,778 crore in 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of FASTag transactions also increased to nearly  48% in 2022 as compared to that in 2021. The number of FASTag transactions in 2021 and 2022 was 219 crores and 324 crores respectively.