New Delhi: The government has collected ₹26,622.93 crores toll tax through FASTag on National Highways during April-January, said union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.
The collections have witnessed a 21.7% increase from FY21. However, about 12.5 lakh refund cases have been facilitated to FASTag users for incorrect deductions since January 2020.
Under the FASTag programme, refunds are processed after scrutiny and validation by the respective issuer bank, based on the evidence/supporting details provided by stakeholders, such as fee plaza operators/concessionaires, acquirer banks, system integrator, etc.
National Highways Association of India has appointed several measures to reduce/eliminate occurrence of any incorrect deduction via FASTag at user fee plazas. Implementation of Interface Control was introduced in 2018 to enable elimination of any duplicate Electronic Toll Collection transactions from FASTag vehicles at fee plazas.
Policy circular on remedial measures for handling the double deduction for defined turn-around time (TAT) for refund of any excess deduction of user fee – whether paid in cash or via FASTag, auto-refund of excess fee collected via FASTag and penal action on defaulting bank/fee plaza operating agency/concessionaire.
The government has already mandated the provision for enabling near-real time processing of FASTag transactions with implementation of application programming interface (API)-based protocol (Interface Control Document (ICD) 2.5). This will enable instant SMS to FASTag users on any transaction carried out at fee plazas on National Highways.
As on 5 February, 2022, approximately 80% of the FASTag transactions were processed on API-based protocol, that is interface control document specifications.
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