central Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said the government is considering introducing monthly and annual passes in lieu of toll collection for private vehicles on national highways, as the share of private vehicles in the total collection is only 26 per cent. Addressing an event, Gadkari said that toll collection booths will be set up outside the villages, so that the movement of villagers is not hampered. The minister said, “74 per cent of toll revenue comes from commercial vehicles. “We are considering introducing monthly or annual passes for private vehicles.”
Share of private vehicles in total toll collection is 26%
He said that the share of private vehicles in the total toll collection is only 26 percent, so the government will not suffer any loss. Gadkari said the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has decided to initially implement the seamless Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based toll collection system along with Fastag on national highways as an additional feature. “Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based toll collection system will be better than the current toll collection system,” he said.
Toll will not take much time
In July last year, Gadkari had said that a pilot study regarding GNSS based user fee collection system has been conducted on Bengaluru-Mysuru section of National Highway (NH)-275 in Karnataka and Panipat-Hisar section of NH-709 in Haryana. . The move aims to reduce traffic congestion and charge for travel on highways based on exact distance. The average waiting time for vehicles at the toll plaza during FY 2018-19 was eight minutes. With the introduction of FASTag, the average waiting time of vehicles has reduced to 47 seconds during FY 2020-21 and 2021-22. Although waiting times have improved significantly in some places, especially in densely populated towns near cities, there are still some delays at toll plazas during peak hours.
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