Mohali: 14% hike in FASTag transactions at Dappar toll plaza in a month

MOHALI: It has been a month since the government had set deadline for FASTag at toll plazas and since then there has been a hike of 14.1% in FASTag transactions at the Dappar toll plaza located on the Ambala-Chandigarh Expressway. According to the data provided by the officials, the FASTag transactions touched 69.5% on February 15, whereas on January 15, it was 55.4%.
When asked about how the graph increased in one month, Deepak Arora, toll plaza manager, said the reason behind the hike was awareness.
"The situation has improved a lot compared to last month. Everything is going on smoothly. There are many people who earlier crossed the toll plaza through cash lane, but as they experienced trouble, they bought FASTag," he said.
The officials of the toll plaza claimed that the situation of the blacklisted vehicles were still giving them a tough time as they are increasing per day.
"One month back, only 1,000-1,200 blacklisted vehicles used to enter the FASTag lanes, but surprisingly the number has touched at around 1,500-1,700 vehicles daily," said Arora.
As witnessed, FASTag lanes are running smoothly, but a huge rush can still be seen in cash lane and people are having a tough time passing through it as there were visible queues upto 500 metre.
"It is hard to believe that people are still not using FASTag and are approaching cash lane," said one of the workers at the cash lane.
As per the government norms, the government vehicles are exempted from paying toll at the cash lane.
"As they are exempted only for cash lane, but when they enter the FASTag lane, they are charged double due to blacklisted vehicle. Therefore, they argue with us and give a tough time to those behind them in the lane. It is surprising that the norms are set up by the government and government officials are doing such things," said one of the officials.
According to officials, the graph went higher since the implementation day-by-day. Compared to last month, more kiosks of FASTags have been set up on both sides of the toll plaza making it easier for defaulters to buy it.