FASTag to be mandatory from Dec 1: Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways

A hassle-free journey on highways are on the way – with FASTag, you can worry less about not having “chhuta paisa” for your road trips!

Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways announced last month that FASTags will be made necessary for all vehicles, commercial & private, from the 1^st of Dec’19, after which vehicles without FASTag will be charged double the rate at toll gates.

The radio frequency identification (RFID) technology was used to enable quick, cashless payments at the electronic toll collection (ETC) gates. ETC infrastructure was designed especially for FASTags in 2014 and after its success all highways upgraded to the infrastructure in March this year.

FASTag are prepaid rechargeable tags for toll collection that allow automatic payment deduction from the FASTag, they are normally affixed on the windscreen of your vehicle. It is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) program.

With this technology, tolls are collected automatically as soon as the vehicle passes through the toll plaza. The transaction occurs while the vehicle is in motion and the driver need not stop for payment. Toll fare is debited directly from the linked account of FASTag user.

You can buy FASTags online via e-commerce platform Amazon and activate it yourself as it is bank neutral. To activate, you need to download its official app ‘My FASTag’ on your smartphone, fill in your vehicle details and link the account with any of your bank account or prepaid wallet such as Paytm.

It is important to note that you cannot use one FASTag for two or more vehicles, you will have to purchase two separate FASTags for both vehicles and so on.