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Electronic Toll Collection across Country by year End

With an aim to ease traffic on the National Highways, the union government has decided to implement Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system across all the toll plazas on NH by this year end. To start the ETC system, the ministry of road, transport and highways will launch a seamless commuting on the NH – 8 from Delhi to Mumbai in a couple of weeks. A decision regarding the nationwide implementation of ETC has been taken after successful pilot run of the system for 10 toll plazas between Mumbai (Charoti) and Ahmadabad.

To implement the system, the ministry has issued orders to incorporate ETC lanes as a mandatory clause in the contracts awarded for all highways projects. "The government has also decided to implement Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) based ETC collection system across the NHs," said a senior ministry official.

The ETC enables road users to pay highway tolls electronically without stopping at the toll plazas. The unique number of the RFID Tag affixed on the windshield of the vehicle will be read by the readers fitted in the dedicated ETC lanes of plazas and sent to the Central Clearing House (CCH) for financial settlement. An agreement has been signed for CCH services for ETC with the leading bank and 'Indian Highways Management Company Limited' (IHMCL).

To start the ambitious plan for seamless commuting on the NHs, CCH service provider has placed orders for first consignment of hardware's for 20 toll plazas on NHAI managed highways stretches. Earlier, for implementation of ETC system on pan India basis, the government has constituted a separate company IHMCL with equity participation from the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), concessionaires and financial institutions.

"The objectives of the new company are collection of toll through ETC and to manage the project strategically, administratively, legally technically, commercially and to provide services of a central system which includes toll transaction clearing house operations, help desk support and setting up of call centers for incident management," said a senior official of ministry.

Toll is collected under the provisions of the National Highways Act,1956. The first major NH stretch brought under toll was Kotputli-Amer section of NH-8 with effect from March 30,1998. Out of 374 toll plazas, 302 are on 15,506 Kilometers length of the NHs and 72 are on river bridges.

Source-On Request