Long queues of vehicles piling up at the non-FASTag lanes at all the 17 toll plazas in Telangana hours after user fee through FASTag was made mandatory forced the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials to open more hybrid toll collection lanes to ease the situation on Sunday, the first day of the new rule.
Actually, from this morning only one lane was opened for cash payments while all other booths switched over to the National Electronic Toll Payment (NETC) programme. However, this led to long waiting period at the booths for the non-tag vehicles while the FASTag vehicles had hassle free smooth passage at the toll gates.
“Yes, we had seen long queues of vehicles at the cash-only lanes. We had to open additional lanes to clear the traffic jams,” said Krishna Prasad, General Manager, NHAI, Telangana and added that sale of tags at the specially erected counters at all the plazas will continue till further orders.
Road marshals
Since morning, marshals were deployed at least one km ahead of the toll plazas to guide the vehicles into FASTag and cash lanes. A report from Adilabad said the change over of toll payment initially threw the traffic out of gear. The lane discipline, however, was restored quickly at the Pipparwada, Rolmamda and Gamjal toll plazas by marshalls manning the facilities.
It took at least 10 minutes for a vehicle to clear the boom barrier in the single lane where toll is paid in cash which also indicated that a good number of vehicle users have yet to acquire the FASTag. In Pipparwada and Rolmamda, the cruising was smooth for vehicles which were moving with the FASTag displayed on their windshields.
The NHAI had put up ‘FASTag Lane’ indicators on the carriage way of the NH 44 itself, one km before the Rolmamda toll plaza. This made it easy for faster vehicles to slide into proper lanes at the plaza.
In Gamjal, the operations were not as smooth as desired around 10 a.m. It took at least 10 minutes for vehicles to cross the boom barrier apparently due to some technical problem.
Police deployed
At the two toll plazas in the erstwhile undivided Nizamabad district and one located at Sone in Nirmal district bordering Nizamabad district immediately after the bridge across the Godavari on NH-44 about 20 policemen were deployed at each plaza to regulate traffic. At Indalwai plaza, 25 kilometers east to the district headquarters out of 12 gates (six up and six down) two gates each side were dedicated for cash payment and the remaining for FASTag.
“On an average 13,000 four wheelers pass through the plaza everyday and almost 50 % vehicles have been linked with FASTag ,” said Y. Chandra Mohan, Project Manager at Indalwai gate.
Slow, steady movement
Traffic movement on the NH-65 (Hyderabad-Vijayawada) and NH 163 (Hyderabad-Bhupalapatnam) at toll plazas in erstwhile Nalgonda district was slow and steady. While there was heavy traffic and vehicles moved at snail’s pace for some time, measures by officials got the movement flowing smooth.
At Panthangi toll plaza in Choutuppal, the second busiest gateway in Telangana, all the lanes, except one, were stickered “FASTag Express (No Cash)”. Similar labelling was at the Korlapahad plaza, near Suryapet, on the same route.
Owing to mounting traffic, personnel were employed to walk up to the driver side, inquiring payment mode, and cash collected from vehicles which had not enrolled for FASTag.
According to an official at Panthangi plaza, “Two lanes on each direction were kept for regular cash mode throughout the day, and based on vehicle volume more were added. Till 8 p.m., about 18,000-20,000 vehicles passed through.”
Toll managers, including at Gudur toll plaza near Yadadri and at Korlapahad near Suryapet, said the FASTag implementation on the first day was “40%-50% successful.”
(with inputs from S.Harpal Singh in Adilabad, P.Ram Mohan in Nizamabad and B.Pradeep inNalgonda)
