Reaching an all-time high, the average per day toll collection in financial year 2023-24 stood at a massive Rs 150 crore during the first eight months, government data analysed by News18 shows. This is an improvement from the average collection of Rs 131.5 crore per day during 2022-23 and Rs 93 crore in 2021-22.
Up to November, the total toll collection, called user fee, stood at Rs 36,377.79 crore, documents from the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) seen by News18 show.
Over the years, there has been a consistent improvement in toll collection on national highways. The main reason was migration from manual toll collection to electronic — FASTag.
Other reasons that contributed to the increase in toll collection included traffic growth, revision in user fee rates, and the addition of new tollable road length.
As of October 2023, the total length of the national highways in India stood at 1,46,145 km and presently 98.9 per cent of fee collection happens through FASTag.
MoRTH data shows that toll collection on national highways across India has risen around three times between 2015-16 and 2022-23 – from Rs 17,759.12 crore to Rs 48,028.22 crore.
This financial year, the daily toll collection reached an all-time high on April 29 when Rs 193.15 crore was accumulated in a day with 1.16 crore transactions.
In July, News18 reported that the average monthly toll collection through FASTags for the first quarter of 2023-24 stood at Rs 4,406 crore. This is more than the average monthly collection in the previous quarter (January-March 2023), which was Rs 4,083 crore, as well as the first quarter of 2022 (Rs 3,841 crore). The average monthly toll collection for the April-November period stood at Rs 4,550 crore.
Arrival of FASTag
FASTag has been made mandatory since February 15, 2021. From that day, all lanes of toll plazas on national highways were declared FASTag lanes. This was done to achieve 100 per cent electronic toll collection.
The ministry also mandated that any vehicle not fitted with functional FASTag will have to pay twice the amount applicable to that category at the toll plaza on the FASTag-mandated lanes.
How is the toll calculated?
User fee rates are calculated in accordance with National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008 for public-funded fee plazas and the then applicable Fee Rules and provision of Concession Agreement of BOT (Toll) Fee plazas.
As per the provisions of National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008, the rate of fee for use of a section of a national highway of four or more lanes is the product of the length of that section and base rates for a year.
These user fee rates per kilometre are revised each year with effect from April 1 as per the extant fee rules.
For expressways, this charge is 1.25 times, and for two lanes with paved shoulders and above but below four lanes, it is sixty per cent of the user fee charge for a four-lane-or-more national highway.
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