Government Relaxes Mandatory FASTags Implementation till 15th January

FASTags implementation updates –  In a relief to travelers, the government has extended the mandatory FASTag implementation for further 30 days till 15th Jan 2020. Further, the government also announced to convert up to 25 per cent of FASTag lanes at national highway toll plazas to hybrid lanes for a month. The hybrid lane will accept FASTag as well as other modes of payment.

The government earlier had announced rollout of mandatory FASTag under electronic toll collection from December 1, which was later extended to December 15, 2019. To give a fillip to digital payments and bring in enhanced transparency, the ministry had directed to declare all lanes of fee plazas on National Highways as ‘FASTag lanes’ by December 1. However, one lane in each direction was decided to be kept as ‘hybrid lane’ which will accept FASTag and other modes of payment.

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“Considering the request of NHAI and further the citizens are not put to inconvenience… it is decided that depending on the traffic pile up at high traffic volume fee plazas, not more than 25 per cent ‘FASTag lane of fee plaza’ may be temporarily converted to hybrid lanes,” the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said.

The ministry clarified that it is a temporary measure to be adopted for 30 days only to facilitate smooth flow of traffic so that no inconvenience is caused to the citizens.

FASTag is the brand name for the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme, the flagship initiative of the ministry with the help of NHAI, NPCI and banks in India, has been implemented on a pan-India basis in order to remove bottlenecks and ensure seamless movement of traffic and collection of user fee as per the notified rates, using passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

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It was earlier announced the waiver of tag cost from November 21 till 31st Dec 2019, there has been a growth in FASTag issuance.

A customer may call on the helpline number ‘1033’ for any assistance related to FASTags besides the individual customer care number of different issuer banks in India. Click here for customer care of FASTag helpdesk for all the issuer banks in India.