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Journalism of Courage
Charged twice over while driving through a toll plaza? That’s not entirely unusual. In 2024, refunds were issued in 12.55 lakh cases involving incorrect toll deductions.
Errors in the calculation of user fees or tolls; double charging of users; instances of duplicate transactions; and return journeys not provided for despite payment — the reasons for wrongful toll collections are many. This also includes the vehicles sometimes being charged for toll fee even without having travelled on a National Highway or Expressway.
In a written reply in Lok Sabha on Thursday, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said that if toll agencies are found responsible for incorrect user fee deduction, a penalty amounting up to 1,500 times the excess user fee charged, is imposed on the user fee collecting agency.
“National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), which provides the Central Clearing House (CCH) services of National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) Programme, has reported 12.55 lakh transactions where refunds were made due to incorrect user fee (toll) deductions in the year 2024, out of a total of 410 crore FASTag transactions in the same year which represents 0.03% of all Fastag transactions,” Gadkari said in his reply.
He further said, “Penalties of more than Rs.2 crore have been levied so far on the user fee collecting agencies for incorrect user fee deduction cases.”
Out of the total incorrect deductions, the error in toll fare calculation accounts the most. For over 5 lakh such cases in 2024, the refunds were made. This was followed by 4.45 lakh cases of tag holder not recognizing the transaction. Apart from this, the refunds were made in a total of 1.36 lakh cases of “duplicate transaction done at toll plaza”, 1.25 cases of “return journey not not provided” and around 47,000 cases of “Paid by other means” in 2024.
Gadkari said that in cases where the toll is charged from a vehicle even without crossing the toll plaza, a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh per case is imposed on the toll agency.
“National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) takes monthly statement of false deduction cases from toll free number 1033 and after the investigation, Rs.1 Lakh penalty is levied on user fee collecting agencies for each bonafide case,” said the Minister.
He also said that vehicles are sometimes charged toll fees even without travelling on a National Highway/Expressway when user fee collecting agencies enter incorrect Vehicle Registration Number (VRN) in the system while manually creating VRN based transactions.
“The double charging sometimes happens due to multiple reading by FASTag readers. Penalty of Rs. 1 lakh per case is levied on user fee collecting agencies to discourage manual VRN based transactions,” Gadkari said.
As a part of ongoing action in such cases, the NHAI Thursday debarred 14 User Fee Collection Agencies for irregular activities in Fee Collection at Toll Plazas. Along with this, Uttar Pradesh special task force conducted raids at the Atraila Shiv Ghulam Toll Plaza in Mirzapur district for such activities.
“The replies submitted by the fee collection agencies were not found to be satisfactory. The agencies have been debarred for a period of two years for violation of the provisions of the contract agreement,” said NHAI in an statement.
NHAI said that defaulting agencies will have to hand over toll plaza to a new agency, which will be appointed by the authority.
