Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said that the Centre will introduce a satellite-based toll collection system in place of the current system of toll collection. Gadkari explained that under this system, money will be deducted directly from one’s bank account based on the distance they have travelled.
“Now we are ending toll and there will be a satellite-based toll collection system. Money will be deducted from your bank account and the amount of road you cover will be charged accordingly,” news agency ANI quoted Gadkari as saying.
He added that this system will be helpful in saving time and fuel usage as well. To explain his point further, Gadkari gave the example of the reduction in travel time from Mumbai to Pune.
“Through this, time and money can be saved. Earlier, it used to take 9 hours to travel from Mumbai to Pune. Now it is a 2-hour journey. Seven hours of diesel get saved. Naturally, we have to pay some money in return. We are doing it through public-private investment. So we will have to return the money too,” Gadkari explained.
Moreover, the efforts to simplify processes and reduce waiting times at toll plazas have been reported to the World Bank.
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The introduction of FASTag has already reduced the average waiting time at toll plazas to 47 seconds, a significant improvement from the previous average of 714 seconds.
Reiterating his commitment of making India’s road network at par with that of the USA by 2024-end, Gadkari said that India’s fate will change by the end of this year. He said that he will “definitely be successful” in achieving this herculean task.
The Union minister also gave an update on the Bharatmala-2 project. Gadkari discussed the Bharatmala Pariyojana, a project aimed at developing around 26,000 km of economic corridors, and its importance along with the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) and North-South and East-West (NS-EW) corridors in managing the majority of freight traffic on roads.
“Bharatmala-2 is a project of about 8,500 km, Bharatmala-1 included 34,000 km. Many schemes have been approved and many are to be done,” he said.
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There has been a 10% increase in construction and expansion activities on National Highways from April to November of the current fiscal year compared to the same period from 2011 to 2023. However, the allocation of new construction projects has seen a decline of 52% this year.
