Motorists using expressways will have to pay more from today as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has hiked toll amounts across the country by 5 percent starting today.
The annual revision of highway user fees, which is expected to be in the range of an average 5 percent, was to come into effect on April 1. However, the hike was deferred due to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“The new user fee will come into effect from 3.6.2024,” a senior NHAI official said on June 2.
The change in toll fee is part of an annual exercise to revise the rates that are linked to the changes in the wholesale price index (CPI)-based inflation.
There are around 855 user fee plazas on the national highway network on which user fee is levied as per the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008. Of these, around 675 are public-funded fee plazas and 180 are operated by concessionaires.
According to government data, toll collection crossed over Rs 50,000 crore (till November 2023) in the financial year 2023-24, due to a sharp increase in tolled roads and the addition of new FASTag users, according to government data.
Toll collection stood at Rs 25,154.76 crore in 2018-19, Rs 27,637.64 crore in 2019-20, Rs 27,923.80 crore in 2020-21, Rs 33,907.72 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 48,028.22 crore in 2022-23.
The total toll length in the country has risen from 25,996 km in FY19 to 45,428 km as of November-end of FY24. Toll length stood at 29,666 km in 2019-20, 34,071 km in 2020-21, 38,315 km in 2021-22 and 42,595 km in 2022-23.
India has about 66.71 lakh km of road network, which is the second largest in the world.
More than 7.98 crore FASTags have been issued till November 30, 2023. The toll collection via FASTag has grown significantly after the declaration of all lanes of fee plazas on National Highways as FASTag lanes in February 2021. According to data, the average daily collection via FASTag on the NH fee plaza is Rs 147.31 crore and the number of average daily ETC transactions on the NH fee plaza is Rs 86.61 lakh in FY 23-24 (till November 2023).
