National Highways Authority of India to report, blacklist ‘loose FASTag’ users

NHAI has tightened its rules against 'loose FASTags'—FASTags not affixed to vehicles—to improve toll collection and avoid congestion. Toll agencies must now report such cases for blacklisting to support smooth operations ahead of MLFF and annual pass rollouts

New Delhi: State-owned NHAI on Friday said it has strengthened the process for reporting ‘loose FASTag’ for blacklisting users to ensure smooth tolling operations.

In view of upcoming initiatives like the annual pass system and multi-lane free flow (MLFF) tolling, it is critical to address this issue to ensure FASTag authenticity and system reliability, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said in a statement.

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“To ensure smooth tolling operations and strengthen reporting of ‘loose FASTags’, NHAI has further streamlined its policy for the Toll Collecting Agencies and Concessionaires to immediately report and blacklist ‘loose FASTags’, that are also commonly called tag-in-hand,” it said.

The statement said that sometimes, highway users deliberately do not fix FASTags on the windscreen of vehicles. “Such practices pose operational challenges leading to lane congestion, generation of false chargebacks, misuse in closed-loop tolling systems, causing overall disruption of the Electronic Toll Collection framework, resulting in unnecessary delays at toll plazas and inconvenience to other National Highway users,” it said.

To ensure timely corrective measures, the statement said NHAI has provided a dedicated Email ID and has directed the toll collection agencies and concessionaires to immediately report such FASTags. “Based on the reports received, NHAI will take immediate action to initiate blacklisting/ hotlisting of the reported FASTags,” it said.