The Road Ministry on Wednesday said all national highways will have electronic toll collection system by the end of the fiscal. This will be implemented in at least one lane at all toll plazas in thenational highways.
With an electronic tag attached on vehicles, drivers can zoom across national highways with without having to stop and pay cash at toll booths.
To implement the project, all road developers have to be on board. There are 374 toll plazas on national highways now, of which about 164 are private-funded, 138 are public-funded and 72 are public-funded bridges.
Many of the 138 public-funded projects are going to be bid out on operation, maintenance contract. “We have already installed electronic toll plazas at 20 public-funded roads. In the remaining 75, they will be installed soon,” Vijay Chhibber, Secretary, Road Transport Ministry, said.
National Highways collected ₹11,387 crore as toll in fiscal 2013-14. Of this, ₹3,398 crore was collected on public- or government-funded roads.
The Ministry plans to implement electronic toll collection across the national highways, a move which would allow road users to pay tolls through tags on their vehicles.
To reduce waiting time at highway toll plazas, the National Highways Authority of India has formed a company called Indian Highways Management Company Ltd, to implement ETC across national highways. This has already been implemented at 10 toll plazas between Mumbai and Ahmedabad on road stretches operated by Larsen and Toubro, and IRB Infrastructure.
Target Meanwhile, in a related move, the Ministry is looking to set a target of awarding 7,000 km of highways this year, but it wants the freedom to decide how it will be done. The Ministry wants to award a larger portion of projects (about 5,000 km) through public-funded roads. The project sizes may be split into smaller sizes.
Another proposal on the radar is to relax norms that would allow road developers buy and sell equity. The Ministry also has proposals on quickly undertaking port-connectivity works.
On the road transportation side, with India accounting for the largest number of road accident deaths globally, the Ministry wants to push through the Motor Vehicle Amendments Bill. Other proposals include setting up of a safety transportation board.