Payments using FASTags at petrol pumps, parking lots soon

New Delhi: Consumers will soon be able to buy petrol and pay parking fees using FASTags, the electronic toll collection system. Nitin Gadkari, the minister for road transport and highways, on Monday launched new bank-neutral FASTags issued by Indian Highways Management Company Ltd (IHMCL).

National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) chairman Sanjeev Ranjan said that it was working on facilitating fuel and parking fee payments through FASTags.

The tags will be available at 50 select petrol pumps initially and will be increased to 100 by next fiscal.

FASTags are stickers employing radio-frequency identification to ensure automatic deduction of toll charges without motorists having to stop at toll plazas to make the payment.

Gadkari also said that the electronic tolling system is the only way to ease traffic congestion at toll plazas.

He added that the government is eyeing the implementation of the tolling system across state toll plazas which are not under the NHAI. The state governments will be required to share half of the capital expenditure for the project.

With the IHMCL product, consumers will be able to link their FASTags with their bank accounts or payment apps, a feature that was not available earlier.

In the earlier products, consumers had to link their FASTags with banks from which they could purchase the tags.

The road ministry is looking to increase electronic toll transactions from 27-28% on national highways to 50%, or revenues of ₹ 12,000 crore by March 2019, according to the NHAI’s official estimates.