The Chief General Manager (CGM) of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Akhilesh Srivastava’s FASTag application recently reached the two-million user download mark. The milestone is a five-fold increase when compared to previous years.
The CGM of the NHAI says that the electronic tolling penetration has increased by 25 percent. The NHAI aims to make FASTag available to 5 million people by the end of 2018. With this, motorists can pay their Toll invoice electronically.
FASTag – Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags – are affixed to windscreens of vehicles. When motorists pass through FASTag-enabled Toll lanes, the system identifies the FASTag sticker and instantly debits the Toll fee.
The FASTag-enabled payment system decongests the traffic and saves the motorists’ time consumed for paying the Toll bill, enabling seamless travel. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) plans to make FASTag payment mandatory at all Toll plazas.
The FASTag system not only eliminates traffic congestion at Toll gates but also brings transparency to Toll operations. According to the CGM, NHAI and MoRTH took a cue from the nations where electronic Toll collection is already successful.
Akhilesh Srivastava and his team are integrating crediting instant discounts to FASTag users in a bit to encourage digitalisation. Also, they are advocating manufacturers to affix FASTag stickers to vehicles in the initial stages of production itself, instead of asking dealers or buyers to do so.
The FASTag system will cut down the halting time at Toll plazas, minimise managerial tasks, reduce fuel consumption, and bring transparency to monetary transactions. The NHAI CGM said that the Two-million downloads was a positive sign of people’s acceptance of the digitalisation processes.
With more than a decade of experience, Akhilesh Srivastava has relentlessly worked for enhancing commuter’s journey, modernising and digitalising the road and highway operations. Recognising the work of Srivastava in the roads and highways sector, the Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC), felicitated him with the prestigious Vishwakarma award.
From modernising the highways sector to digitalising Toll payments, Srivastava headed and implemented several projects by harnessing the power of technology. He developed the incident management system for highways and an ODR portal for the construction industry.
Besides FASTag project, Akhilesh Srivastava introduced Web Radio, Wi-Fi connectivity, green belts, solar energy panels, and more in the country. To get accurate results, Srivastava is making use of LiDAR technology and drones in all his assignments.
For the Ministry of Defence, Srivastava designed and implemented e-tendering project. He supervised the cluster Wayside Amenities megaproject, introduced Intelligent Transport System (ITS), incorporated Incident Management System (IMS) on the nodal networks of India, and more.
Srivastava is also heading the construction of the intra-continental highway- India-Myanmar Trilateral Highway (IMTH) under India’s Look East policy which is estimated to increase GDP by USD 70 billion and employment by 20 million by 2025.