Travelling on highways and paying at the toll plazas will change from the 15th of December, the date was postponed from the 1st of December. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) has made a decision wherein it will be necessary for all the vehicles to install a FASTag on the windscreens. Please note, if you do not have a FASTag affixed on the vehicles, you will have to pay double the charges as the ministry will get the lanes changed to FASTag-only lanes from December.
In the FASTag lane, there will a scanner fixed on top, right before the boom barrier, as your vehicle approaches the toll, the scanner will read the electronic tags, and let you cross the toll gate, by automatically lifting the barrier.
Want to buy a FASTag
You can easily acquire FASTags from various e-commerce website like Amazon.in or from Paytm, however, you can also buy FASTags from select banks like SBI, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank at some of their select branches. If you do not have time to visit the branch, you can also buy the electronic tag at PoS (Point of Sale) counters at toll plazas.
Documentations required
To buy a FASTag for the vehicle, one will be needed to submit some documents like
RC (Registration Certificate) of the vehicle
Passport size photo of the owner of the vehicle
KYC documents of the owner
Once you buy the FASTag, you will also have to activate it in order to use it. You will be activate it without any problem, simply by entering your and your vehicle’s details on the MY FASTag mobile application.
Cost of FASTag
When you buy a FASTag, you will be asked to pay Rs. 100 up front as a one-time fee which does include the GST, furthermore, it will be mandatory for the user to maintain Rs. 200 as security deposit (which is refundable) for the vehicles. Apart from this, you will also have to maintain a minimum balance of Rs. 100.
Please note: The security deposit can reach upto Rs. 400, depending upon the size of your vehicle.
How to recharge FASTag
A user will have the option to link the electronic tag directly with the bank account, or use FASTag wallet to recharge the FASTag. The minimum recharge amount is Rs. 100.
If you have a full KYC done, you will get a limit of up to Rs. 1 lakhs to your FASTag prepaid account, but if you are a limited KYC holder, you will not be able to add more than Rs. 10,000 at a time. You will also get different options to pay from like, Credit Card, UPI, Net Banking, Debit Card just to name a few.
To recharge, you can log in to your FASTag portal by either using your user ID or wallet ID and password. Once you log in, you will see an option of ‘payment and top up’. Once you click on it, you will see the option of ‘Recharge’, just select the wallet ID to which you want to add funds using anyone one of the above mentioned methods.
Benefits of FASTag
FASTag are built on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, which will allow the user to make hassle free and cashless payments at toll plazas directly from their e-wallets and/or bank accounts. This will also keep the traffic at these plazas under check as vehicles will not have to stop to pay and get the receipt along with the change (which sometimes take ages).
