NHAI to Launch their ‘Pay as you travel’ Scheme only for the Expressways

1. NHAI to Launch their ‘Pay as you travel’ Scheme only for the Expressways The National Highways Authority of India is working on the process of the much awaited “Pay as you travel” scheme for toll collection. Under this, the toll tax payments are going to be charged based on the total distance traversed by the commuters, primarily only on the expressways and not the national highways in India. While this definitely is a downside as of now, the same might be changed in the coming months after the successful execution of the first step of the process. In an issued statement to an esteemed daily, an National Highways Authority of India official claimed that the chargeable amount for the tax under the “Pay as you travel” scheme might not be pan-India and that the same could just be restricted to the expressways in the initial stage. He further stated that decision is set to be implemented for all the expressways but the highways are still in question. The maiden exercise of this scheme is going to be implemented and initiated on the Eastern Peripheral Expressway which stretches around 135 km around Delhi. It is expected to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi on April 29th 2018. Under this process, the selected expressways in the maiden run will be installed with GPS devices to calculate the total distance travelled by any of the vehicles. This tolling technology is going to operate with the aid of FASTag which is what will sense the movement of the vehicle and keep a record of the distance travelled during the journey. This will also perpetuate the automatic deduction of the toll charges based on the distance travelled by the vehicle. The FASTag is a Radio Frequency Identification Sticker (RFID) sticker which is attached to the windscreen of a vehicle. The sensors at the toll booths detect the sticker and the tax amount is subsequently deducted from the linked bank account or mobile wallet account. Concerned officials believe that the implementation of this scheme will not hamper the overall tax amount which amounts to Rs.65,000crore per day. Officials claim that this will not negate by improving the tax collections. This will aid in easy tax collection from the vehicles entering the expressway through the interchanges. It will prove to be very fruitful for the consumers because they will have to pay for the distance that they travel and not for the entire stretch of the expressway. The concerned department has been advised by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to prepare a detailed project report for five other expressways except for the already decided ones. These include Delhi-Katra, Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Amaravathi (HVA), Kanpur - Lucknow and Nagpur – Hyderabad - Bengaluru (NHB). The finance minister of India, Mr Arun Jaitley was the one responsible for the naming of the scheme. He emphasised stating that this new scheme under NHAI is made to not just streamline the process of toll tax collection at the expressways but also promote transparency in the process. Commuters will pay the amount they travel which is definitely a huge reform for the daily highway users. #FASTag #Tollbooth #TollPlazaIndia