A quarter of all FASTags lanes at 95 fee plazas on Indian highways will operate as hybrid lanes — cash plus FASTag — till March 14, 2020, Road Transport minister Nitin Gadkari said in Parliament yesterday. Earlier, 65 fee plazas were allowed to have 25% hybrid lanes from January 15, but this was extended to 30 more fee plazas on last month, he said. Gadkari did not reveal which toll plazas have been allowed to have hybrid lanes. Between December 15, 2019 and January 13, 2020, 25% of FASTag lanes were allowed to be converted to hybrid lanes at all toll plazas, contingent upon the approval of the regional officer, Gadkari added. Amount collected: Rs 18,107 Crore has been collected through FASTags as of February 5, with maximum toll collected from Rajasthan (Rs 2,789 crore) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 2200) FASTags issued: Over 1.4 crore FASTags, as of January 28, 24 public and private banks are currently engaged as the Issuer bank for FASTag issuance, and 8 banks are processing the transactions done via FASTags. The government is offering a 2.5% cashback in on payments made via FASTags in FY20, Gadkari said in a separate response last month. Between January 15 and January 31, 66% of all transactions made at fee plazas of National Highways Authority of India was done using FASTags. FASTags, originally introduced in 2014, are prepaid RFID tags which can be used to pay tolls on highways without stopping at the plaza, and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had…
