Seamless transit at all highway toll plazas by 2014

The government is working on a plan that will end the long queues of vehicular traffic at toll plazas at all national highways with the help of electronic collection system, within two years. The move is estimate to save Rs 87,000 crore a year.

"Within two years, we intend to bring all toll roads under the electronic collection system," road transport and highways minister CP Joshi told PTI. The system, which has already been made operational on a pilot basis at Chandimandir near Panchkula on the Delhi-Parwanoo highway, collects the toll electronically.

It works on radio frequency identity (RFID) technology. An ID  is given to a vehicle by embedding a smart-chip which acts like a pre-paid mobile card. Doing away with the manual system, the RFID would enable toll collection without making the vehicle stop.

"Inexpensive sticker tags with unique IDs would be fixed on the windshield of the vehicle. Simultaneously all toll plazas on national highways will be equipped with the system to read this tag," Joshi said. Joshi said that the present manual system of toll collection suffers from several loopholes.

"There are many complaints of overcharging and undercharging. There is congestion and crowding at toll booths leading to wastage of time and fuel," he said. According to a study by the Indian Institute of Management- Kolkata and the Transport Corporation of India, delays at toll plazas cost the economy an estimated Rs 87,000 crore every year.

Joshi said the initiative follows recommendations of a high-level committee, headed by the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani. The country at present has about 10,000 km of national highways under toll with about 200 manual-collection centres.