SME Editorial
Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari has said that GPS-based toll collection system will be introduced by March 2024.
He said that the government will introduce new technologies, including GPS-based toll collection system by March next year to replace existing toll plazas at highways.
The objective behind this would be to ease traffic congestion and charging people only for the distance they travelled.
“The government is looking at new technologies, including GPS-based toll systems to replace toll plazas in the country… we will start new GPS satellite-based toll collection across the country by March next year,” he said.
The government has also conducted two pilot projects of automatic number plate recognition system (automatic number plate reader cameras) to enable automated toll collection without stopping the vehicles, the Union Minister informed.
He further said that the average waiting time at toll plazas after introducing Fastag system reduced to 47 seconds in 2020-21 and 2021-22 from 8 minutes during 2018-19.
Although there is considerable improvement in waiting time at certain locations, especially near cities, in densely-populated towns, there are still some delays at toll plazas during peak hours.
Meanwhile, Gadkari said the government will bid out road projects worth Rs 1.5-2 lakh crore on the Build Operate Transfer (BOT) model for highway projects of less than 1,000 kilometres length before the Model Code of Conduct comes into effect for the general elections next year.
“Going forward, we will favour Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) model mostly for highway construction,” he said.
InvITs are instruments designed to pool money from investors and invest in assets that will provide cash flows over a period of time.
