Pollution takes a toll on RFID project

NEW DELHI: The new hi-tech toll collection project, which is expected to reduce congestion and pollution at Delhi’s border points, has missed another deadline. The radio frequency ID tag-enabled system was to have started operations from October 2, a deadline that was later shifted to November “first week”. But with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, the nodal agency for the project, pleading that the civil construction work at the new border toll points was yet to be completed, a new date hasn’t even been set.

“All construction work is currently at a halt due to EPCA’s orders restricting construction work under the anti-pollution Graded Response Action Plan,” a project official claimed. “The construction agency is also facing obstacles in the form of encroached land and non-stoppage of traffic at border locations like Kapashera.”



Currently, the new infrastructure is in place only at Aya Nagar. “A three-day trial was conducted at Aya Nagar, but the RFID system was not made operational and the traffic is crossing the border as usual after manual collection of toll,” the official added. The delay represents a big setback. SDMC had suspended toll collection at the 13 toll points from August 9 to September 30, incurring massive financial losses only to enable completion of the civil work. The fact that the said work is still to be finished speaks volumes for the efficiency in project execution.

On top of that, the civic body has not been able to convince commercial vehicles to purchase the RFID tags. Not more than 30 have been tagged since October 23, when the pre-registration process began. “We can assure that 2.5 lakh tags can be issued in the first few months after the project is implemented,” the official asserted.

On the recommendations of EPCA, SDMC was planning to operationalise the 13 border points in three phases — with Aya Nagar, Kapashera, Tikri, Rajokri and DND to be the first — but for now the infrastructure seems unlikely to be up till November end. “There are some technical problems, including registering of individual accounts and the release of an app for the environment compensation charge to streamline toll collection,” official added.

EPCA has now directed SDMC to at least open one RFID lane in each of the toll points. “After a meeting last week, we asked the contractor to make at least one lane functional at the 13 RFID locations by the end of November,” said Sunita Narain, EPCA member.

Delhi has over 124 toll plazas, of which those at Ghazipur (main and old), Kalindi Kunj, Kapashera, Kundli, Rajokri, Shahdara (main and flyover), Tikri, Badarpur-Faridabad (main), Badarpur Faridabad, DND Flyway and Aya Nagar were chosen for the RFID project.