User fee collection through FASTag on national highways grew to Rs 3,679 crore in December, up 15.8% over November, on a pick-up in economic activity and continued preference for passenger vehicles over public transport during the pandemic.
“The strong pick-up in manufacturing and construction activity supported commercial vehicular movement. This, along with continued preference for passenger vehicles instead of public transport, has led to healthy growth in traffic in December,” Icra’s Rajeshwar Burla said.
In November, Rs 3,178 crore was collected as toll through FASTag, down from Rs 3,357 crore in October. Burla said the cyclone affected movement in November.
All lanes of toll plazas on national highways were declared ‘FASTag lanes’ from February 16, 2021. As of December 21, more than 4.35 crore FASTag have been issued.
FASTag penetration across the country is around 97%, and many toll plazas have reported 99% penetration. As many as 728 national and 201 state highway fee plazas are FASTag-enabled.
In December, there were 242.07 million electronic toll collection transactions, up from 214.23 million in October and 214.13 million in November.
User fee collection on national highways through FASTag was first introduced in 2016-17. The user fee at the public-funded fee plaza is collected by the collection agency selected on the basis of competitive bidding. The amount remitted by the agency under the contract is deposited to the Consolidated Fund of India.
In 2020-21, a total of Rs 27,744 crore was collected as toll on national highways.
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