Highway agencies should not charge toll if roads are not in good condition: Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that highway agencies should not charge tolls if roads are not in good condition. Gadkari was speaking at a global workshop on satellite-based tolling, set to be implemented over 5,000 km this financial year.

"If you don't provide good quality service, you should not charge toll... We are in a hurry to start tolling to collect user fees and protect our interest," the road transport and highways minister said. "You should collect the user fee where you provide the best quality road. If you collect toll on roads with potholes, mud, then there will be a backlash from people," he added.

State-owned NHAI plans to implement (Global Navigation Satellite System) GNSS-based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system within the existing FASTag ecosystem, initially using a hybrid model where both (Radio Frequency Identification) RFID-based ETC and GNSS-based ETC will operate simultaneously.

NHAI proposes to roll this out on commercial vehicles initially then private vehicles, considering scalability and privacy concerns.

The highway authority has also recommended driver behaviour analysis and back-end data analysis for fraud detection.

"With GNSS, the payment modes might be converted from prepaid to postpaid. Banks and financial institutions might be able to provide faster credits based on travel plans," NHAI has recommended.