New barrier-less highway toll collection system to be in place across India within one year: Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that manual toll collection will be replaced by a nationwide electronic system within a year. The NETC program, using FASTag RFID technology, aims to provide seamless, automatic toll payments across 4,500 ongoing highway projects

New Delhi: Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said the current system of toll collection will come to an end within a year and an electronic system will take its place, ensuring a seamless experience for highway users.

The new system has been rolled out in 10 places and will be extended across the country within a year, the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways said in Lok Sabha during Question Hour.

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“This toll system will end. There will be no one to stop you in the name of toll. Within a year, an electronic toll collection will be implemented across the country,” he said.

Gadkari also said that currently 4,500 highway projects worth Rs 10 lakh crore are ongoing across the country.

According to an official statement recently released, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has developed the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) program, a unified, interoperable platform for electronic toll payments, to streamline toll collection across India’s highways.

At the core of NETC is FASTag, a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based device affixed to a vehicle’s windscreen. It allows toll payments to be made automatically from the user’s linked account without stopping at the plaza.