Barrier-free tolling: NHAI fixes plaza design for four-lane highways; Hyderabad-Vijayawada and Warangal plazas on the bid list

The National Highways Authority of India has set one standard design for barrier-free tolling on national highways of four lanes and more, the Road Transport Ministry said on Friday, 6 November. It binds every project yet to be built and those under construction. Vehicles pay while moving, with no booth and no boom.

NHAI’s policy circular settles how such a plaza must look: its plan, how many toll lanes it gets, where the overhead gantries stand, and its lighting, road signs and electronic boards. Highways at the project-report stage will carry the design from the start; roads already awarded or under way will adopt it under their contracts.

Where Andhra Pradesh and Telangana stand

None of the seven plazas the ministry named as running on the system by 1 October lies in the two Telugu states; they are in Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. But a written Rajya Sabha reply by Minister Nitin Gadkari on 22 July listed 17 plazas with contracts awarded, among them Kasepalli, Amakthadu and Marur on NH-44 in Andhra Pradesh, the Hyderabad-Bengaluru highway.

A second list in that reply named 104 plazas where bids had been invited. Panthangi, Korlapahad and Chillakallu on NH-65, the Hyderabad-Vijayawada road, are on it, along with Komatipalli and Komalla on NH-163 towards Warangal, and Painampalli, Singarenipally, Mandamarri, Sarandi, Taddanpally and Dharmaram.

On 6 August, Indian Highways Management Company Limited, the NHAI-promoted company that runs FASTag, sought a bank to operate barrier-free collection at six Telangana plazas from that list, with 7 September as the last date for bids. The winner gets six months from signing to install the system and a five-year term once it goes live. The tender lists 18 plaza lanes at Dharmaram and 16 at Singarenipally, both on four-lane roads. Under the new guidelines, a four-lane highway gets eight plaza lanes including spares, a six-lane highway 10 and an eight-lane highway 12.

When a FASTag fails

With no barrier, the burden shifts to the owner. Gantry readers pick up the FASTag and cameras read the number plate. A low balance, or an invalid or dead tag, brings an electronic notice. The owner then has 72 hours to clear the regular toll or lodge a grievance; past that, the charge doubles. A ministry statement in June added that an unpaid notice may get the FASTag blacklisted and limit other vehicle services through VAHAN.

The 6 November statement names no date for pulling barriers out of existing plazas and does not mention toll rates. Gadkari’s target, set out at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai on 11 September, is 60 to 70 per cent of the work by the end of 2026 and the whole country by February-March 2027.