“Our income was Rs 24,000 crore per year but because of Covid, at least we have had a loss of Rs 10,000 crore. But still, because of FASTag, at the end of March, our income will be Rs 34,000 crore from toll,” the minister said at the Virtual National Roads and Highways Summit 2021 on March 24.
The minister said he expects toll revenue to reach Rs 1.34 lakh crore or Rs 1.34 trillion rupees in three to four years.
On Monday, Gadkari told Parliament that the average daily toll collection had reached Rs 100 crore or Rs 1 billion because of FASTags.
The government has made FASTags mandatory from February 15 midnight and charged double the normal toll for defaulters.
The Minister also asked the industry to develop electric trucks and buses to reduce the dependence on polluting liquid fuels.
Gadkari said he was confident India would have electric trucks and buses within the next year and that the industry would also develop lithium-ion batteries domestically in the next six months.
The road minister also said that he expects the speed of highway construction in the country in March was expected to rise to about 40 km per day from the current 34 km per day.
The speed of construction would rise further with new roads such as the Delhi–Amritsar–Katra Expressway and the Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun project and the new expressway from Delhi to Mumbai.
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