The first day of FASTag implementation saw traffic snarls at the toll plazas across Tamil Nadu’s national highways, as per reports. While cash lanes were dealing with snail-paced vehicular movement, FASTag lanes were seen visibly empty. 

One of the major snags observed by NHAI officials, according to The Hindu report, was that the account linked with FASTags lacked sufficient balance for the toll amount. The vehicular pile-up was also observed in toll plazas in Paranur near Chengalpattu, Vaniyambadi near Katpadi and Kappalur in Madurai. Users also complained of technical snags in the FASTags in which though they had enough balance in the wallets, the tags were being blacklisted.

The Union government recently made it mandatory for all vehicles using the toll plazas in the country to be affixed with FASTags on the windscreens. These are Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) tags will enable easy passage through a toll booth. The scanners fixed in each lane will identify the vehicle, and the toll ticket amount will be automatically deducted from the FASTag wallet of the owner. 

In Tamil Nadu, there are 482 lanes of highways under the control of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) with 48 toll plazas. The government had extended the deadline to December 15 to implement FASTags across the country. On Sunday, all the toll plazas had one cash lane while the other lanes were converted to ‘FASTag only’ lanes. 

Meanwhile, the Union government extended the deadline for vehicles to be fitted with FASTags by another 30 days after the NHAI wrote to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH), seeking an extension due to shortage of FASTags in the market. The tags (RFID chips) are imported and the entire process of import takes around six weeks to complete.