Changing vehicle nos. to evade toll payments likely to attract action

Cracking down on violators who change their vehicle registration numbers to evade toll payments, NHAI has now approached Delhi Police to file FIRs against such offenders since such acts amount to impersonation.

The move comes after some vehicle owners complained to the Indian Highways Management Company Limited (IHMCL), the tolling and technology arm of NHAI, that toll charges were being deducted from their FASTags at the Mundka toll plaza even though their vehicles were parked at home.

An investigation using the Vahan vehicle database revealed that some violators, who did not have FASTags, had altered their vehicle registration numbers. As a result, when these vehicles passed through the toll plaza, the user fee was incorrectly deducted from FASTags linked to other vehicles bearing the original registration numbers.

Officials said that such offending vehicles generally do not have FASTags affixed to their windscreens. Hence, the tolling system deducts the user fee from the FASTag linked to the registration number displayed on the vehicle.

Besides complaints received from affected vehicle owners, officials carried out a detailed analysis of records in the Vahan database and compared them with the make, model and colour of the offending vehicles captured in cameras. The investigation found that the registration numbers were altered to avoid detection and tracking.

NHAI has implemented Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF), or barrierless tolling, at the Mundka toll plaza on UER-II. Under this system, vehicles do not need to stop to pay toll charges as high-performance RFID readers and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system integrated with AI-enabled cameras installed overhead allow seamless vehicle identification, and the toll amount is automatically deducted from the FASTag wallet linked to the vehicle.

Earlier, NHAI had urged the Delhi transport department to carry out regular and sustained enforcement drives against vehicle owners tampering with number plates such as erasing or hiding letters and numbers using paper or plastic to evade toll payments at the toll plaza.