Taken various steps to boost e-payments at toll plazas:Govt

The Centre has taken various measures to resolve issues raised by transporters and encouraged electronic payments at various places, besides introducing coupon system and exempting tolls at plazas, Parliament was informed today.
"The Ministry has received representation from Transporters' Association attracting the attention of this Ministry towards the crisis faced by them due to demonetisation," Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Pon Radhakrishnan said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
He added that the concerns of the transporters have been appraised by the Competent Authority.
To overcome the impact of demonetisation, he said that the government is promoting the usage of digital transaction at various places, including toll plazas and petrol pumps and added that the toll tax was also exempted at toll plazas from November 9 to December 2.

"Further, coupon system has been introduced at toll plaza to overcome the difficulty of change of high denomination currency," Radhakrishnan said.
In a separate reply, he said the government has notified the use of pre-paid payment instruments for collection of user fees from road users.

"This is to permit the road users to opt for available cashless modes of payment," he said.
He also added that the government has facilitated the concessionaire/contractor to introduce the mobile wallet service at their toll plazas for efficient operation.
"NHAI...Has facilitated the concessionaire/contractor to use PoS (Point of Sale) machines for collection of user fees through credit and debit card," he added.