Electronic Toll Collection System across India to be launched on October 31

In a bid to smoothen progress of toll collection, provide a seamless movement of traffic and purge the many bottlenecks along the highways in India, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is set to launch the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system in the country. The Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate the system on October 31, 2014.

According to a MoRTH statement, ETC has already been installed at 55 toll plazas and their integration with Central Clearing House (CCH) operators has almost been completed on the Delhi-Mumbai route via Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

A pilot project for Interoperable ETC system of 10 toll plazas between Mumbai (Charoti) and Ahmadabad has already been tested and seamless ETC on this section is successfully in operation.

The media release says, considering user convenience, rate of acceptance and ease of implementation, passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based on EPC, Gen-2, ISO 18000-6C Standards for ETC technology was adopted by the government.

The Central government has issued orders to incorporate ETC lanes as a mandatory clause in the contracts awarded for all the highways projects in future. Action will be taken to include ETC system by means of supplementary agreement in those projects which have not yet been started.

For implementing ETC across the country, a new company called ‘Indian Highways Management Company Limited’ has been instituted under Company's Act 1956, with equity participation from NHAI (25%), Concessionaires (50%) and Financial Institutions (25%) has already been constituted.

The objectives of the proposed new company are collection of toll through ETC and to manage the project strategically, administratively, legally, technically and commercially providing services of central ETC system which includes toll transaction clearing house operations, helpdesk support and setting up of call centres for incident management and intelligent transport systems among others. The government has already made necessary amendments in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 for fitment of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag on vehicles for ETC. A fund of Rs 17.288 crore has been released during 2013-14 for implementing ETC on 51 public funded projects operated by NHAI.

The common method of toll collection is by having a vehicle passed through a toll plaza where it pays the toll. The user fee (toll) for the National Highways is levied as per the National Highway Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008 and its amendments. For projects completed for which agreements/contracts signed before 5th December 2008, the earlier set of National Highways (Rate of Fee) Rules, 1997 apply. The user fee is collected at the toll plazas as per the notifications issued under Section 7 of the National Highways Act, 1956.