Nellore: Traffic woes to continue at toll plazas

Nellore: From Dec 1, commuters have to pay double the  if they fail to utilise the Fastags through which commuters can make online payments. There are four toll plazas in the district and majority transactions are being made in cash mode. Staff members at toll plazas express doubts that transition of system may not be possible immediately.

The Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways made the Fastags mandatory for all vehicles. It is a prepaid tag that debits the toll amount from the commuters' bank account by using the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID). Vehicles having the tag can pass through toll plazas where scanning of the tag is done automatically to collect toll amount digitally which saves time and controls vehicular traffic at plazas.

Under the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme, from December 1 toll amounts will be collected only via the Fastag. For making the commuters accustomed to the system, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is providing the tags free of cost up to December 1 at toll plazas.

The security deposit for the tag is between Rs 100 and 500 depending on the size of the vehicle, NHAI has claimed that it will waive these charges. There are 22 authorised banks from where one can buy the tags and the vehicle owners have to use separate tags depending on the number of vehicles they own.

Toll plazas have been upgraded with necessary arrangements to enable the automatic deduction of toll. The Fastag account can be recharged using a debit card, credit card, net-banking, etc officials said. A senior official of a Toll plaza in the district said they have been witnessing majority of cash transactions and around 10 pc were using the tags for online payment.

So, these centres may witness huge queue lines for paying the toll at the counters which will delay the process, he said. Now, we are allocating a single lane for vehicles that prefer cash payment mode and we may have to extend the number from Dec 1," said an official from a toll plaza. He indicated that the vehicles that prefer cash mode have to pay double the toll amount as they would be allocating 90 pc lanes for the tag users.