Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari told Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that the government will implement Fastag as well as S and GNSS based toll collection system on selected national highways. In a written reply to a question, he said that this new system has been implemented as a pilot project on Bengaluru-Mysore Highway of NH-275 in Karnataka and Panipat-Hisar route of NH-709 in Haryana.
Satellite service faster than FasTag
Nitin Gadkari said that apart from the existing FASTag facility, the central government has decided to implement Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system on selected sections of National Highways initially on a pilot basis.
Fastag service was started with the aim of reducing the time taken at toll plazas and now preparations to take another big step in this direction are almost complete. The Union Minister had earlier also said that the new (Satellite based toll system) is faster than Fastag.
Toll plazas will now be virtual
The biggest advantage of this satellite based toll tax service is that with its arrival, travelling on national highways will become even easier, such that you will not have to stop at any toll tax like at present and this tax will be collected from you on the go.
Talking in detail about its functioning, the FasTag system currently implemented at toll plazas for tax collection works on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, which automatically collects toll. But in the GNSS based tolling system, there will be virtual tolls. That is, it will not be visible where the toll is and neither will you have to stop at them.
