All 4-wheelers sold after December 1 to be fitted with FASTag 

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has issued a notification that all four-wheel motor vehicles sold on or after December 1, 2017 will have FASTags fitted on them by the manufacturer of the vehicle or its authorised dealer.

For vehicles that are sold as driveaway chassis without windscreen, FASTag will have to be fitted by the vehicle owner before it is registered. The decision is in line with the government’s digitisation drive.

The FAStag option allows a near non-stop movement of vehicles through fee plazas and convenience of cashless payments of toll fee with nationwide inter-operable Electronic Fee Collection Services.

It is estimated that the annual cost of delay on highways to the Indian economy exceeds Rs 30,000 crore per annum. And the impact of additional fuel consumption due to delay and slow speed of vehicles is around Rs 60,000 crore per annum.

FASTag essentially is a device that employs Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for making toll payments directly from the prepaid account linked to it. It is affixed on the windscreen of a vehicle and enables a smooth drive through toll plazas.

FASTag has a five-year validity and after purchasing it, it only need a recharge/ top up the as per requirement. FASTag offers near non-stop movement of vehicles through toll plazas and the convenience of cashless payment of toll fee with nation-wide interoperable Electronic Toll Collection Services. FASTag is part of the National Highway Authority of India’s (NHAI) programme for electronic toll collection on toll plazas on national highways.

Its benefits include no need to carry cash for toll transactions, near non-stop movement of vehicles leading to lower fuel cost, online recharge through credit card, debit card, NEF, RTGS or net banking and also SMS alerts for toll transactions and low balance.

In August this year, NHAI launched two mobile Apps – MyFASTag and FASTag Partner – to facilitate the availability of FASTags for electronic toll collection. All lanes of all 371 NHAI toll plazas in the country are FASTag-enabled. Further, NHAI has also introduced online sale of FASTags and offline sale through Common Services Centre (CSC) near toll plazas. FASTag can now be purchased online from issuer banks websites / NHAI website / IHMCL website and will be delivered by courier at the doorstep of the purchaser. FASTags can also be bought from CSC sale points to be set up near toll plazas.