The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) plans to keep a check on toll operators through a third party. It is looking for an agency which can carry out surveys of those toll plazas which are FASTag enabled. An official from MSRDC said, "The survey will be made in order to check whether the equipment installed is working properly or not. The intention of converting Toll plazas into FASTag is to prevent a queue and for the easy movement of vehicles."
The survey will be held after a certain period of interval. The toll operators will not disclose the problems/glitches. Therefore the appointed agency (third party) will keep a check and give a report about their working, the official asserted.
The selected agency will carry out the survey of National Electronic Toll Collection at various toll Plazas in the state-controlled by MSRDC. Initially, the survey will be of toll plazas in the city which have been FASTag enabled. In Mumbai, there are total of five toll plazas --Vashi, Airoli, Mulund, LBS and Dahisar. Of which the FASTag work at Dahisar toll Naka is pending due to the ongoing Metro line work. However, by use of handguns, the scanning of FASTag is done apart from allowing other payment options.
Besides, these five toll plazas the Bandra Worli Sealink is also completely FASTag enabled except two lanes that have been reserved for other modes of payment like cash, card, etc.
The official asserted that all city toll plazas will be completely FASTag enabled, however, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and delay in the shipment of required equipment from abroad, the said work has been affected. Meanwhile, to encourage commuters to use FASTag, the agency had in April started the facility of monthly toll passes only to FASTag users. The daily commuters can buy monthly passes for Rs 1,240 (single toll) and for multiple toll roads Rs 1,500 reportedly.
