JOIN USCruising through national highway toll plazas will be a reality by 2014 with the help of electronic collection system, which will save the country Rs 87,000 crore a year.
“Within two years we intend to bring all toll roads under the electronic collection system,” said Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi.
The system, has already been made operational on a pilot basis at Chandimandir near Panchkula on the Delhi-Parwanoo highway, where the toll is paid electronically.
It works through Radio Frequency Identity (RFID), which is given to the vehicle by embedding a smart chip, which can store value like the pre-paid mobile cards. Doing away with the manual system, the RFID would enable toll collection without making the vehicle stop.
“Inexpensive sticker tags with unique IDs would be fixed on the windshield of the vehicle. Simultaneously all toll plazas on National Highways will be equipped with the system to read this tag,” Joshi said.
The present manual system of toll collection has several loopholes.