Mumbai: Aiming to increase the number of automatic pass-throughs at toll plazas to 50 per cent in two years, the government has expanded the number of lenders and wallets, who can issue the electronic tags for vehicles, a top official said today.
State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, IDFC Bank and the digital wallet PayTM will also start issuing the tags, which are required for electronic toll collection, National Highways Authority (NHAI) chairman Raghav Chandra said.
“Our intent is to have a seamless commutation at all the toll plazas. We have initially tied up with ICICI Bank and they have so far issued 60,000 pass tags. A few more banks are now coming forward to assist us in this project,” he said.
The electronic toll collection operates at 356 toll plazas across now, he said, adding the newly-enlisted banks and PayTM have trial-runs for their system with the National Payments Corporation’s central server.
The authority is targeting to increase the number of vehicles paying electronically to 50 per cent in the next two years, he said.
“Our intent is that we issue at least 50,000 pass tags every month and over the next 12-24 months nearly 50 per cent of the traffic movement across the toll plazas,” Chandra said.
He said the authority is also urging the Reserve Bank to liberalise the KYC norms for such tags, which will help increase the usage.
It can be noted that each vehicle is provided with an RFID chip that helps in its identification and is pasted on the windshield of a vehicle. Dedicated readers installed at the toll plazas read the vehicle data and the sum to be paid gets deducted from the account or from the prepaid wallet linked to the tag.