FASTag: Over 70 lakh issued so far ahead of the December 1 deadline

New Delhi, Nov 27: The government on Wednesday said over 70 lakh FASTags have been issued so far and Tuesday saw the highest per-day sales at 1,35,583 tags.

The National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme, the flagship initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, has been implemented on a pan-India basis in order to remove bottlenecks and ensure seamless movement of traffic and collection of user fee as per the notified rates, using passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

"Over 70 lakh FASTags have been issued till date, with the highest per-day issuance of 1,35,583 tags on November 26, 2019, (Tuesday), whereas 1.03 lakh tags were issued on the day before. The average daily issuance has grown by 330 per cent from 8,000 in July to 35,000 tags sold in November 2019," the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.

After the announcement of waiver of tag cost from November 21, there has been a growth in FASTag issuance, it said adding that FASTag is accepted on more than 560 toll plazas and the number of plazas is getting added on a daily basis.

To give a major fillip to enhance digital payments and bring in enhanced transparency, the ministry said it has directed to declare all lanes of fee plazas on national highways as 'FASTag lanes' by December 1. However, one lane in each direction would be kept as 'hybrid lane' which will accept FASTag and other modes of payment, it added.

"With the above mandate, average daily transactions processed through FASTag have grown from 8.8 lakh in July this year to 11.2 lakh transactions in November 2019, while the average daily collection has grown from Rs 11.2 crore to Rs 19.5 crore for the given period," the ministry said. To avoid difficulties at toll plazas, commuters are advised to maintain sufficient balance in the account or wallet linked to FASTag.

All the available mode of recharges such as debit card, credit card, net banking and Unified Payments Interface have been enabled for loading money to the FASTag account. A customer may call on the helpline number, '1033', for any assistance related to FASTags, the ministry said and added that they can also reach out to the banks to obtain FASTags.