Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on
Thursday told Lok Sabha that the government is planning to do away with
toll plaza booths across India within a year as they are planning to implement
a complete GPS-based toll collection system in the country.  The toll amount will be collected based on GPS imaging (on vehicles). Gadkari made
the statements during the Question Hour of the lower house while speaking on ‘Vehicles Scrapping Policy’.

Making his case, Gadkari said that 93% of the total vehicles already pay toll using FASTag, while the remaining 7% have still not taken it despite paying a double toll. The union minister added that he has instructed authorities to initiate a police inquiry for those vehicles which do not pay tolls using FASTags.

Highlighting the importance of FASTags, Gadkari said that cases of toll theft and GST evasion have been reported in the vehicles with no FASTags installed.

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For the unversed, FASTag is an electronic toll payment system. The government doubled the toll price for vehicles without FASTags from February 16 this year.

FASTags were introduced in India in 2016.

Meanwhile, Gadkari said that the vehicle scrapping policy will be a “win-win” policy that will help improve fuel efficiency and reduce pollution.

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He said the policy will also lead to an increase in the country’s automobile industry turnover to Rs 10 lakh crore from the current Rs 4.5 lakh crore.

According to the statement tabled in the Lok Sabha, the “scrap value for the old vehicle given by the scrapping centre, which is approximately 4-6% of the ex-showroom price of a new vehicle”.