Nitin Gadkari Announces Plan For Toll-Free Driving For 15 Years With One-Time Payment
The Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, is always praised by a lot of people for building roads at a rapid pace. However, he also gets trolled a lot on the internet because of the super expensive tolls that are collected from vehicles driving on the roads he builds. Now, while addressing this issue, Gadkari recently hinted during an interview at a big relief coming for all road users. He stated that in the coming few months, the government is planning to introduce toll-free driving for 15 years. The only catch is that a lifetime pass has to be bought by paying a one-time fee.
Annual passes for tolls coming soon: Gadkari
Recently, while speaking to NDTV India, Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, highlighted that he has been noticing all of the memes and cartoons made about him on the internet. He then stated that in the coming few months, the government will introduce a relief measure in the form of a one-time annual or lifetime pass.
Gadkari stated that it will ensure that people do not have to stop at toll gates on national highways. Although Gadkari did not reveal the specific details of this new annual and lifetime pass, it has been reported that the government could charge Rs 3,000 for an annual pass and Rs 30,000 for a lifetime pass. The latter will be valid for 15 years, which is the lifetime of a petrol vehicle in India.
How will this system work?
It has been stated that these new annual and lifetime passes will be incorporated into FASTags. As a result, no additional devices will be needed by vehicle owners. Currently, a monthly pass costs around Rs 340 per month, which totals Rs 4,080 per year. So this new annual pass will help road users save some amount.
In addition to this, Gadkari also stated that the government is reviewing the prospect of reducing the per km toll rate. This will again help frequent highway users reduce their overall expenditure on tolls. He added that this is being done after noting that the public is very dissatisfied with increasing toll fees and infrastructure quality.
GNSS tolls also coming
Apart from the above reliefs, the government is also planning to launch Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based tolls. With this new system, the need for traditional toll plazas will end. All vehicles will be tracked via GNSS, and vehicle owners will only have to pay the toll for the distance traveled by the vehicle.
Will improve the quality of road infrastructure: Gadkari
During the interview, Nitin Gadkari also answered questions regarding the recent incidents that exposed the poor quality of work done by many contractors on national highways, especially expressways. Gadkari stated that the government has been diligently working to check the work done by the contractors. He added that all of the contractors who have done shoddy work are being blacklisted and will not get any more projects in the future.
Highway construction growth is also increasing
Gadkari also mentioned that the pace of construction of new highways is increasing every day. In 2020-21, the pace of highway construction reached its peak at 37 km per day. Also, in 2024, the pace was kept at 34 km per day. Gadkari highlighted that over 7,000 km of highways were built in the current financial year. He added that delays in highway construction are only caused by stricter land acquisition requirements and cabinet approvals for large projects.