Annual & life-time toll passes

Speaking at a workshop on ‘Barrierless Tolling in India’, Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that MoRTH is working on a plan to issue annual and ‘life-time’ passes for private cars to allow them unlimited travel across the NH network. According to him, less revenue comes from private vehicles. Nearly 74% of toll revenue comes from commercial vehicles. A mechanism is being worked out on how the government can tackle the issue of the private toll operators claims of high number of pass users. The Minister stressed the need for barrier-less global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-based toll collection system on NHs that could reduce travel time by 20–30% and saving 8–10 minutes per toll point. It estimated that the environmental benefits will include a reduction of 50 lakh tons of carbon emissions annually and fuel cost savings of approximately `12,000 crore per year