December 18, 2020: On Thursday, Nitin Gadkari (Union Minister for road transport and highway) announced at the ASSOCHAM Foundation Week event that government will remove all toll plazas from across the country in the next two years. Instead, all toll taxes will be collected based on the vehicles’ GPS (Global Positioning System).
“With the help of Russian Government we have accepted the GPS system and in the next two years we will have a toll collection system running on GPS technology” said Gadkari at the event. He further added that this will remove all toll naka (barriers) and ensure seamless movement of vehicles on the highways.
On the matter of vehicles that don’t have a GPS system, Gadkari said, “While now all commercial vehicles are coming with vehicle tracking systems, the Government will come up with some plan to install GPS technology in old vehicles”.
The toll taxes will be directly deducted from the owners bank account based on his/her vehicle’s movement and location.
“With the GPS-based toll collection system, toll income of NHAI in next five years is expected to be INR 1,34,000 crore,” said Gadkari. The National Highways Authority of India or NHAI’s toll income for the year FY20 was around INR 24,000 crores and with the implementation of FASTags since January 2020, this income is expected to rise as high as INR 34,000 crores in FY21.
