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| Govt says 12.55 lakh refunds made for faulty NH toll collections in 2024 | | | Agencies
NEW DELHI, Mar 20: The government on Thursday said 12.55 lakh refunds were made in 2024 for faulty toll collections on National Highways.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said penalties of more than Rs 2 crore have been levied so far on the user fee collecting agencies for incorrect user fee deduction cases.
"National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), which provides the Central Clearing House (CCH) services of National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) Programme, has reported 12.55 lakh transactions where refunds were made due to incorrect user fee (toll) deductions in the year 2024 out of a total of 410 crore FASTag transactions in the same year which represents 0.03 per cent of all FASTag transactions," Gadkari said.
He further said if toll agencies are found responsible for incorrect user fee deduction, as per Clause-15 of the Contract Agreement, a 30-50x penalty on excess user fee will be imposed on the fee collecting agency.
The minister also informed that cracking down on irregularities in toll collection, NHAI has barred 14 toll collection agencies for irregular activities following a probe after Uttar Pradesh STF unearthed a fraud. Based on the FIR, NHAI had served a 'Show Cause Notice' to defaulting agencies.
"Based on the FIR, 13 user fee collecting agencies have also been debarred for a period of two (2) years," he said.
Vehicles are sometimes charged toll fees even without travelling on a National Highway/Expressway when user fee-collecting agencies enter incorrect Vehicle Registration Number (VRN) in the system while manually creating VRN-based transactions. The double charging sometimes happens due to multiple readings by FASTag readers.
Responding to a separate question, Gadkari said state-owned NHAI is also considering the installation of audit cameras at high-value toll plazas to independently monitor the accurate count and classify vehicles using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
User fee rates are determined as per NH-Fee Rules, 2008, which are displayed at each fee plaza.
The minister said an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) has been installed across 325 National Highway projects with a total length of around 20,000 km.
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