India will become 'toll plaza free' in next two years!

NewsBharati    18-Dec-2020 17:10:47 PM
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New Delhi, Dec 18: In a major development, Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari said the use of GPS-based (Global Positioning System) toll collection will ensure India becomes "toll plaza free" in the next two years. He also said this would help the exchequer earn Rs 1.34 trillion in the next five years.
 

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Addressing the ASSOCHAM Foundation Week Programme here today, Gadkari shared his perspective on the theme ‘National Infrastructure Pipeline critical for economic revival across sectors,’ and explained that the toll amount will be deducted directly from the bank account based on the movement of vehicles. "While now all commercial vehicles are coming with vehicle tracking systems, the Government will come up with some plan to install GPS technology in old vehicles", he said.
 
The toll collection may reach Rs 34,000 crore by March 2021 and by using GPS for toll collection, the income in the next five years will be Rs 1.34 trillion, he said. The use of technology will mean that there won’t be leakages in the collection of the levy and the money transfer can happen in a transparent manner. To enable seamless toll collection at the plazas, the government introduced RFID (radio frequency identification) tags.
 
According to an official statement by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), RFID-enabled FASTags contribute nearly three-fourths of the total toll collection (till November). The daily collection stood at Rs 92 crore compared to Rs 70 crore a year ago. The government rolled out the FASTag-based electronic toll collection mechanism from December 15, 2019, across all toll plazas of the NHAI.
 
Further, Gadkari said that industrial development is key to employment generation and poverty eradication in India, however at present, the industry is India is centralized in urban areas as such decentralization of industry is imperative to boost growth rate as growing urbanization is causing grave problems in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and others. He also impressed upon the need to promote public-private investment in infrastructure development. He assured the Government’s support in projects that are not economically viable.