FASTag Sale Grows by 330 Per Cent; Over 70 Lakh Issued till Date #FASTag #Sukumarbalakrishnan

Over 70 Lakh FASTags have been issued till date, with highest per day issuance of 1,35,583 Tags on 26th November 2019, whereas 1.03 lakh Tags were issued on the day before. The average daily issuance has grown by 330 per cent from eight thousand in July to thirty-five thousand Tags sold in November 2019. After announcement of waiver of Tag cost from 21st November, there has been a growth in FASTag issuance of over 130 per cent. FASTag is accepted on 560+ Toll Plazas and more number of plaza are getting added on daily basis.

National Electronic Toll Collection (FASTag) programme, the flagship initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and NHAI has been implemented on pan India basis in order to remove bottlenecks and ensure seamless movement of traffic and collection of user fee as per the notified rates, using passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. To give a major fillip to enhance digital payments and bring in enhanced transparency, it has been mandated to declare all lanes of fee plazas on National Highways as "FASTag lanes" by 1st December 2019, while provisioning one lane (in each direction) which would be kept as hybrid lane to accept FASTag and other modes of payment.

With the above mandate, average daily transactions processed through FASTag have grown from 8.8 Lakh in July this year to 11.2 lakh transactions in November 2019, while the average daily collection has grown from Rs 11.2 crore to Rs 19.5 crore for the given period.

Certain commuters face difficulty at Toll Plaza due to low balance in FASTag. To mitigate such difficulty, commuters are advised to maintain sufficient balance in the account/wallet linked to FASTag. All the available mode of recharge like Debit Card/Credit Card, Net-Banking and UPI have been enabled for loading money to the FASTag account. For ease in understanding the recharging process, an easy to understand FAQ has been released.

2. I have forgotten my Tag details. How to retrieve information?

a. For bank issued FASTag (i.e. FASTag purchased from a bank)

A customer may call concerned bank's Toll-free number written on the back side of the tag. Customer has to mention his or her user credentials (mobile number against which the tag has been registered, Vehicle Registration Number (VRN) etc.) On successful verification of use credentials, requisite information shall be provided.
The list of Customer care number of the banks can be availed from below:

i. www.ihmcl.com
ii. My FASTag App
iii. NHAI Helpline number 1033

b. For NHAI FASTag (i.e. bank neutral FASTag)
A customer may call 1033 Helpline number for any assistance.