New tags for vehicles soon

The government will soon make it compulsory for car owners to embed RFID tags containing vehicle information, toll details etc, in the windshields.

“The tags will be helpful for toll collection, parking and implementation of economic road pricing in congested areas,” said N R Gokarn, CEO, National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRIP), a Government of India undertaking.

He was speaking at a discussion on smartcard technologies for transit applications, on the concluding day of the three-day smartcard expo here on Friday,   
Mahesh Chandra, Deputy Director, National Informatics Centre (NIC), said: “Electronic toll collection system is aimed at reducing the service delivery time at RTOs significantly.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has been facilitating computerisation of approximately 975 RTOs across the country.

“NIC has established vehicle state registers and a national register that include vehicle details, insurance data and drivers’ licence details. Records of more than 9.98 crore vehicles can be accessed through the national register.”

Ashok Jhunjhunwala, chairman, Mobile Payment Forum of India, talked about why Internet-based payment methods are not successful in India. “Mobile payments can achieve what Internet payment couldn’t achieve in the country. Mobile payments can be done through various channels such as SMS, Internet, voice etc, giving ample opportunities to build various payment applications,” he said.

Shweta Aprameya, head of the Alpha Payments Services said Kenya was far ahead of India in terms of mobile payment.  “Over 50 per cent of Kenya’s population has access to mobile payment, whereas it is yet to take off in India. The key reasons behind this are the lack of Unique ID implementation in India, absence of inter-bank settlement system and broad and dependable retail network for sign up, cash in and cash out.”

The expo on smartcards was attended by around 200 global exhibitors and over 6,000 visitors from 25 countries.