New Delhi: The road and transport ministry on Sunday said that any vehicle passing through NH toll plazas without a FASTag from the midnight of February 15-16 will have to cough up double the toll charge.
“It has been decided that all the lanes in the fee plazas on National Highways shall be declared as ‘FASTag lane of the fee plaza’ w.e.f. midnight of 15th /16th February 2021,” the ministry said in an order.
The government had earlier made FASTags mandatory for motor vehicles from January 1 this year.
“Therefore, as per NH Fee Rules 2008, any vehicle not fitted with FASTag or vehicle without valid, functional “FASTag” entering into the ‘FASTag lane’ of the fee plaza shall pay a fee equivalent to two times of the fee applicable to that category,” the ministry further said.
Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari said the deadline for implementation of FASTag would not be extended further, and the vehicle owners should immediately adopt the e-payment facility, the TOI reported.
Replying to a query on FASTags, Gadkari said the government had extended FASTag registration date limit two-three times before and now, it would not be extended further. Now, everybody should immediately buy FASTags, he added.
The Centre had earlier sought support from all enforcement agencies across states to implement the mandatory use of FASTag to pay user fee across toll plazas on NH network.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has set up 40,000 points of sale (PoS) to facilitate on-the-spot buying of FASTags.
Originally slated to be rolled out from January 1, 2021, the deadline was extended till February 14 by the ministry of road transport and highway (MoRTH) on December 31, 2019.
FASTag is an RFID tag that facilitates electronic payment of fees at toll plazas automatically. Apart from stopping pilferage of revenue and maintenance of transparency, FASTag will ensure seamless movement of vehicles, saving fuel and time.
