The people of India are soon going to get relief from paying toll tax repeatedly. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has claimed that the government will instead of collecting toll from private vehicles on national highways.
Toll Tax: The people of India are soon going to get relief from paying toll tax repeatedly. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has claimed that the government is considering introducing monthly and annual passes for private vehicles on national highways instead of collecting toll from them. Gadkari says that private vehicles account for only 26 percent of the total collection. Therefore, introducing monthly and annual passes will not make any difference in tax collection.
Nitin Gadkari also said that toll collection booths will be set up outside the villages so that there is no hindrance in the movement of the villagers. He clarified that 74 percent of the toll revenue comes from commercial vehicles. Therefore, we are considering introducing monthly or annual passes for private vehicles. This will also provide relief from the problem of congestion at the toll barriers.
Government is going to implement GNSS system
He said that the share of private vehicles in the total toll collection is only 26 percent, so there will be no loss to the government. Gadkari said that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has initially decided to implement a seamless Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based toll collection system on national highways with FASTag as an additional feature.
He said that the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based toll collection system would be better than the existing toll collection system. In July last year, Gadkari had said that a pilot study on GNSS-based user interface has been conducted on the Bengaluru-Mysore section of National Highway (NH)-275 in Karnataka and the Panipat-Hisar section of NH-709 in Haryana.
Relief from toll tax lines
The move aims to reduce traffic congestion and charge based on the exact distance travelled on the highway. The average waiting time for vehicles at toll plazas during the financial year 2018-19 was eight minutes. With the introduction of FASTag, the average waiting time for vehicles has come down to 47 seconds during the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22. Although the waiting time has improved significantly at some places, especially in densely populated towns near cities, there are still some delays at toll plazas during peak hours.