Friday, July 2, 2010
New electronic toll collection system by May 2012: Nath
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/New-electronic-toll-collection...


New Delhi: A new electronic toll collection system that will do away with the need for human tax collectors, and help plug revenue leakages, will be put in place by May 2012. The system will be installed at all toll booths of the country to collect tax without the requirement of stopping the vehicle.

The new system will use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and will have three levels of interface — from the vehicle to toll booth, booth to satellite and satellite to a central toll clearing house. Users will just have to recharge a card pasted on the windscreen of the vehicle. The card will be uniquely identifiable and cannot be tampered with.

A reader will be installed at the toll plaza that will read the card as the vehicle passes through and will send the details to a central toll clearing house through satellite. The clearing house, which will contain data regarding the vehicle like its registration number, the account balance, etc, will debit the account with the toll amount.

For the government, the technology will improve toll collection. Currently, toll of around Rs 300 crore does not reach the government coffers due to leakages at the collection level. “The existing system has a revenue leakage of Rs 300 crore. The electronic toll collection through the new technology will prevent this leakage and even though the traffic will increase, the chances of more revenue leakage will reduce,” road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath told reporters after accepting the recommendations of the expert committee on electronic toll collection, headed by Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani. The committee was constituted by the ministry on April 20 this year.

Initially, the system will be optional for users. However, the government is in favour of making it mandatory. Nath said the government will ask Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) to have inbuilt chips in all new vehicles.

Users will have to invest Rs 100 for the card that has to be recharged based on the available balance. The concessionaire or National Highways Development Authority (NHAI), whoever operates the booth, will have to install a reader on each lane of the highway at a cost of Rs 2 lakh per reader.

Out of 71,000 km of national highways, only 8,500 km is under toll and the government is planning to increase it to 30,000 km in the next five years. NHAI operates..