Toll collections, which witnessed robust growth in FY23, is expected to remain healthy in the current financial year on the back of rising industrial activity as well as growing traction in personal mobility.

Analysts and officials point out that toll collections largely depend on two factors — inflation and traffic. In FY23, the collections were robust backed by healthy growth in toll rates, on account of high Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and increasing commercial and personal mobility.

In FY24, toll collections will remain buoyant, but not at the scale witnessed in FY23, which grew from a lower base in FY22. Softening WPI and modest decline in commercial and personal mobility will have a bearing on toll rates in FY24.

A top official from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said that average daily toll collection at the end of 2022 was around ₹133-134 crore, which has risen to more than ₹140 crore at the end of March 2023.

Fastags on the rise

“Toll collections rose in 2022 due to rising industrial and economic activity coupled with growing personal travel, particularly leisure and business. This was further boosted by high inflation, which reflects in rates,” the official explained.

For instance, toll collections last month (April’23 ) hit an all-time high of ₹193.15 crore with 1.16 crore transactions in a day, which is 34 per cent higher than ₹144.19 crore (December’ 2022).

As per Motilal Oswal Financial Services, FASTag toll collections improved to ₹5,150 crore in April 2023, up 1.5 per cent, from ₹5,070 crore in March 2023 on a m-o-m basis.

On a y-o-y basis, collections improved by 22 per cent compared to ₹4,220 crore in April 2022. The trend clearly indicated that FASTag toll collections are improving gradually and steadily.

Toll collection numbers for FY23 are not available, but official sources said that they could be around ₹38,000 crore. In FY22, toll collection stood at ₹34,742 crore against ₹28,681 crore in FY21 as well as ₹28,482 crore and ₹26,179 crore in FY20 and FY19, respectively.

A senior official said that the April-December collections for FY23 for NHAI have already surpassed FY22. Cumulatively in the 9MFY23, NHAI collections are more than ₹15,700 crore against ₹14,002 crore in FY22. Currently, India has over 1,200 toll plazas, including State toll plazas and over 6.9 crore FASTags have been issued to users.

Positive outlook in FY24

Anand Kulkarni, Director, Crisil Ratings, pointed out that toll rate hikes will be lower in FY24 as the WPI has moderated. Hence the hike will be around 5 per cent, he adds. Toll collection growth in FY24 will be a healthy 9-11 per cent.

“In FY24, on a higher base, traffic growth will moderate compared to FY23 which will also mirror India’s GDP growth. Crisil Research estimates GDP growth for FY23 at 7 per cent, while the same is expected at 6 per cent for FY24. We estimate traffic growth rate to be 4-6 per cent in FY24. Passenger traffic growth will continue to be driven by leisure travel and healthy personal mobility. Commercial traffic growth will continue to remain healthy,” he explained.