Toll revenue underpins India's highway financing models. Evaluate the role of electronic tolling in getting the most value from national highway assets.

Under BOT concessions, Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) bundles and InvITs, a highway is worth only as much toll as it can reliably collect. Electronic tolling, first through FASTag (about 98% penetration, 8 crore+ users [1]) and now through barrier-less Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF), has raised that value a great deal. To capture all of it, though, enforcement and fairness must improve as fast as the technology.

How electronic tolling adds value

• Less leakage, more revenue: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport (2024) found that FASTag raised toll revenue because waits were shorter and less money went missing [2].
• More traffic through each asset: MLFF reads FASTag through RFID and number plates through ANPR cameras on overhead gantries, so vehicles pay without stopping. It began at Chorayasi on NH-48 [3] and reached Tamil Nadu at Paranur on NH-179B [4].
• Lower costs: It removes the need to build plazas and reduces human handling of cash, as well as fuel use and emissions [4].
• Bankable cash flows: Digital transaction records make toll income easier to predict, which helps price assets for TOT and InvIT monetisation.

Where value still leaks

• Weak enforcement: CAG (Report No. 12 of 2024) found that NHAI did not recover double-toll dues from concessionaires. This cost the Consolidated Fund of India ₹21.12 crore, and about ₹63 crore was still pending [5]. MLFF's 2× fee, charged only if an E-Notice is unpaid after 72 hours [6], will work only if someone actually collects it.
• Data errors: A FASTag linked to the wrong registration number sends the E-Notice to the wrong person. This is why NHAI had to start a validation drive [7].
• Speed does not make a toll lawful: CAG (Report No. 7 of 2023) found an undue burden of ₹132.05 crore on users at five southern plazas because NHAI had not applied the 2013 amendment to the Fee Rules [8]. Automation can repeat such errors without anyone noticing.
• Privacy: ANPR builds a record of where vehicles travel, which needs data-protection safeguards.

Electronic tolling is necessary but not sufficient for getting the most value from highway assets. MLFF contracts should state who recovers E-Notice dues and by when. The 72-hour grievance window [6] should become a full appeal process with fixed deadlines. Pre-registered express lanes, as the Committee recommended [2], would reduce wrong notices. Each plaza should also be checked against the Fee Rules before it switches to MLFF. Together, these steps would make tolling efficient, fair and bankable, in line with PM GatiShakti's aim of cheaper logistics.