In a positive development, toll collections through FASTags across the sprawling national highway network have witnessed a surge of 23 per cent over the past four days, with the amount reaching the highest ever daily collection of Rs 102 crore on bygone Friday (19 February), reports Times of India.
The past week has seen cash transactions fall below 10 per cent of the total toll collections which has served as another reason for plugging the leakages other than the conversion of all toll lanes as FASTag lanes by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The officials are confident about the record collection of user fees under the mechanism with the elimination of the avenues for anyone to under-report the toll collection figures.
The Government is also said to have upped the monitoring of the toll plazas to ensure that commuters are not caught in queues even with valid FASTags.
Pioneered by the Nitin Gadkari led Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, FASTag is an electronic toll collection system operated by NHAI. It uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to digitise the process of toll payments from the user’s prepaid or savings account to the toll owner.