NHAI to blacklist

The National Highways Authority of India said it has streamlined its policy for the toll collecting agencies and concessionaires to immediately report and blacklist ‘loose FASTags.

The move becomes imperative given the imminent rollout of FASTag-based annual pass of ₹3,000 for private vehicles from August 15.

While FASTag has transformed India’s electronic toll collection with over 98 per cent penetration, ‘loose FASTags’ or ‘tag-in-hand’ scenarios present a hurdle to efficient operations.In the statement, NHAI said highway users sometimes deliberately do not fix FASTags on the windscreen of vehicles.

“Such practices pose operational challenges leading to lane congestion, generation of false chargebacks, misuse in closed loop tolling system, causing overall disruption of the Electronic Toll Collection framework, resulting in unnecessary delays at toll plazas and inconvenience to other National Highway users,” NHAI said.

To ensure timely corrective measures, NHAI has provided a dedicated email ID and has directed the Toll Collection Agencies and Concessionaires to immediately report such FASTags. Based on the reports received, NHAI will take immediate action to initiate blacklisting / hotlisting of the reported FASTags.