The decisive change at national-highway toll plazas came at midnight on 15–16 February 2021. The government designated every fee-plaza lane a FASTag lane, making electronic payment the organising principle of the toll system. By August, the transport ministry reported FASTag penetration of approximately 96%. What had been an alternative to the cash window had become the normal way through. [1]
A small tag on the windscreen carried the transaction. A reader identified it, the linked account paid the toll, and the driver received an electronic record. The exchange of notes and change no longer had to occur at every crossing. That basic arrangement was already described when FASTag service was launched along the Delhi–Mumbai route in October 2014. [3]
A standard chosen before the rollout
The technology decision went back further. In July 2010, the UPA government accepted the recommendations of a committee led by Nandan Nilekani. It chose passive radio-frequency identification: a tag without a battery, attached to the vehicle, working with roadside readers. The proposed system included prepaid accounts and a central clearing arrangement so motorists could pay across different operators’ plazas. [2]
The committee’s anticipated national rollout by 2012 was a target. The October 2014 announcement instead documented an operating service at 24 plazas on the Delhi–Mumbai section, alongside work to expand it. The later Modi-government rollout therefore built on an earlier choice of technology and architecture. [2] [3]
The harder institutional task was making banks, road operators and toll equipment work as one payment system. A tag useful at only one operator’s gates would have left drivers managing a collection of accounts. The interoperable design addressed that fragmentation; the national lane policy subsequently made adoption much broader. [2] [1]
What the national figures measure
In January 2026, the ministry told Parliament that more than 98% of national-highway user fees were collected through FASTag. It reported 11.86 crore tags issued by December 2025. These are different measures: a share of toll revenue and a cumulative stock of issued tags. Neither is a count of unique motorists. [4]
A later official release made the distinction especially clear. At the September 2026 launch of OneTag portability, the ministry reported roughly 13 crore tags issued but about 6 crore active. Replacements and inactive accounts make cumulative issuance an unsuitable stand-in for vehicles currently using the network. [6]
The January reply also cited a 2024–25 impact assessment estimating average plaza-crossing time at 40 seconds under electronic collection, against 12.23 minutes with manual tolling. Those are government-reported study results. The reply did not supply the sampling and measurement detail needed to establish how closely that average described every plaza or peak-period queue. [4]
The problems after adoption
NHAI’s own operational notices show why a digital payment did not guarantee an uninterrupted passage. Its January 2024 “One Vehicle, One FASTag” initiative followed reports of multiple tags for one vehicle and tags issued without completed customer verification. It also identified tags deliberately kept off windscreens as a source of delay. Equipment and account records had to correspond to the vehicle arriving at the gate. [5]
By September 2026, the next announced change was portability between issuing banks while retaining the physical tag. NPCI would update the issuer information, while banks handled verification, balances and pending transactions. The launch described a service to be made available through the Rajmargyatra app; it did not establish universal completed migration. [6]
At that same event, the minister described barrier-free passage with no stopping as the next goal. The toll payment had largely moved into the network. Removing the remaining interruptions at the gate was still work ahead. [6]