Nilekani panel to discuss toll plaza tech on Feb 22

The first meeting of the committee constituted to select a technology to unify toll plazas across the country will be held on February 22. The committee is headed by Nandan Nilekani and will have four other members.

“Nilekani held an informal meeting with the officials on February 4 and a formal meeting is scheduled for February 22,” said a source in the ministry, who did not want to be identified.

The five-member committee has Nirmal Jit Singh, director-general (roads), road transport ministry, and VL Patankar, member (technical), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), as members. The other members are yet to be selected by the committee chairperson.

The former Infosys chairperson was asked to head the panel after NHAI’s attempts to test three electronic tolling technologies failed.

NHAI tested active, passive and infrared technologies for the best tolling solution. In the active system, a tag sends as well as receives signals; in the passive system, the tag only sends signals, while in the infrared system, it sends and receives signals through optical fibres.

All the three technologies are being successfully used across Europe, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

“The committee will discuss and find the best technology among the three, which will be implemented at toll plazas across the country,” said an NHAI official, who did not want to be named.

The plan is to integrate the back-end software of all toll plazas. As of now, the toll plazas are connected only to the central server at the authority’s headquarters in New Delhi, but not with each other. A traveller on the highway that connects Delhi with Mumbai has to cross around 20 toll plazas and has to swap 20 different cards or pay cash 20 times to complete the journey. The integration will enable him to buy a smart card for use at all toll plazas.