P.V.Anandpadmanabhan

The launching of the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system has been rescheduled. The Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari will now inaugurate the system on October 31, 2014 instead of October 27.

ETC has already been installed at 55 Toll Plazas and their integration with Central Clearing House (CCH) operators has almost been completed on the Delhi-Mumbai route via Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. A pilot project for Interoperable ETC system of 10 toll plazas between Mumbai (Charoti) and Ahmadabad has already been tested and seamless ETC on this section is successfully in operation. 

The Central Government has issued orders to incorporate ETC lanes as a mandatory clause in the contracts awarded for all the Highways projects in future. Action will be taken to include ETC system by means of supplementary agreement in those projects which have not yet been started. For implementing ETC across the country, a new company under Company's Act 1956, with equity participation from NHAI (25%), Concessionaires (50%) and Financial Institutions (25%) has already been constituted. The name of the company is “Indian Highways Management Company Limited”. 

The objectives of the proposed new company are collection of toll through ETC and to manage the project strategically, administratively, legally, technically and commercially providing services of central ETC system which includes toll transaction clearing house operations, helpdesk support and setting up of call centres for incident management and intelligent transport systems among others. Necessary amendments have already been made in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 for fitment of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)tag on vehicles for ETC. 

At present there are some problems in collecting tolls. These are by way of not having a uniform rate throughout various sections of National Highways in India. Secondly, BOT (Toll), BOT (Annuity) and Public Funded Projects have different toll collecting agencies, which is an impediment for a uniform acceptable standard of service to the commuters. There are many complaints of   charges levied  by tool booths ,nor proper data  of toll fee collected by the agents who are entrusted for the collection. There is congestion and crowding of vehicles at toll booths leading to wastage of time and fuel etc. 

In order to remove the bottlenecks and ensure seamless movement of traffic and collection of toll as per the notified rates, Government had constituted a committee on Electronic Toll Collection technology for use on National Highways under the chairmanship of Shri Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India. This Committee's mandate was to examine all technologies available for ETC and recommend the most suitable technology for local conditions. Considering user convenience, rate of acceptance and ease of implementation, passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based on EPC, Gen-2, ISO 18000-6C Standards for ETC technology was adopted by the Government.