Chennai: From tomorrow, you will have to pay twice the regular amount if you pass a toll booth and your vehicle does not have a FASTag.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had announced that FASTags will become mandatory for all vehicles, private and commercial from Sunday (the earlier deadline was 1 December).
FASTags are prepaid rechargeable tags for toll collection that allow automatic payment deduction from the FASTag, they are normally affixed on the windscreen of your vehicle.
With the help of a FASTag, you will not have to stop your vehicle at a toll plaza to pay the toll. As soon as the vehicle crosses the toll plaza, the toll fee will get deducted from the bank account/prepaid wallet linked to the FASTag affixed on the vehicle’s windscreen.
The government has made it mandatory for all vehicle owners to adopt electronic toll payment using FASTags and not cash payment which will attract penalties from tomorrow. FASTags can be bought through e-tailers, banks, payment apps, fuel bunks and toll plazas.
The Centre’s earlier deadline mandating FASTags by 1 December had been postponed to 15 December to provide some more time to citizens to buy and put FASTag on their vehicles.
To expedite its sale before the deadline, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, had also announced last month that all FASTags sold by NHAI would be given free of cost till 15 December.