ICICI Bank, Axis Bank tie up for electronic toll collection programme

Private sector banks ICICI Bank and Axis Bank today announced partnership with the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and Indian Highways Management Company Limited (IHMCL) for the launch of the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) programme on the National Highway 8 (NH-8). This service enables motorists to pay tolls electronically without stopping at the toll plazas in the 1,428-km highway which connects the country’s national capital Delhi with financial capital Mumbai.

Axis Bank has been empanelled by IHMCL (Indian Highways Management Company Ltd, a subsidiary of NHAI) to partner with them in the e-Toll project. FasTag users will be able to cruise through the toll plazas without the hassle of stopping for paying cash with Axis Bank facilitating electronic Toll Collection service at all Toll Plazas on the National Highways.

With the Ahmedabad – Delhi corridor of NH-8 being brought under the ETC programme today, the entire highway is now covered by this programme. ICICI Bank launched the ETC programme on the Mumbai – Vadodara stretch of NH8 and Vadodara – Ahmedabad Expressway last year.

Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director & CEO, ICICI Bank said, “ICICI Bank is delighted to be associated with implementation of Electronic Toll Collection on national highways. We were the first bank in the country to launch this innovative service on the Mumbai – Vadodara corridor of NH8 in 2013. ETC substantially enhances convenience for users, and we believe it will play a very important role in contributing to the growth of cashless payments in India. We are working with the Ministry, NHAI and IHMCL to cover more highways under ETC in the near future.”

To enable electronic payments at toll plazas, a prepaid ‘Radio Frequency Identification Device’ (RFID) tag known as ‘FASTag’ is affixed on the windscreen of the vehicle. As the vehicle crosses the toll plazas, the information is passed to the motorist’s prepaid account created at the central clearing house set-up by the Bank and the applicable toll amount is deducted and transferred to the concessionaire's account electronically.

A vehicle with the ‘FASTag’ can use the dedicated lanes on either side of the toll plaza to avoid long queues in the cash lanes of the toll plazas. There are 26 toll plazas from Mumbai to Delhi on NH8. Five of them are between Mumbai and Vadodara, six from Vadodara to Ahmedabad and 15 between Ahmedabad and Delhi.

Anyone, including non-customers of the Bank, can buy the tag from select ICICI Bank branches or Point of Sales set up by concessionaires at toll plazas by showing the "Know Your Customer" (KYC) documents and paying the required fee, ICICI Bank said.

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