Is FASTag compulsory for all vehicles?

It was in October 2019 that the Road Transport and Highways minister Nitin Gadkari announced that FASTags will become mandatory for all vehicles from 1st December 2019. However, there have been extensions of this deadline, the 1st December 2019 deadline was shifted to 15th December 2019, and then to 15th January 2020. There could be many reasons for this extention, including the increased demand for tags and increased queue times at many toll plazas. The latest extension until 15th January 2020 has come due to shortage of tags in the market.

FASTag is now mandatory for all private and commercial vehicles. FASTag enabled payment is currently available at over 524 toll plazas across national and state highways. Vehicles without FASTag will have to pay twice the normal rate at toll gates across country.

If you need to buy FASTag for your car, you can either physically buy one at POS Office at toll plazas, by carrying your identification as well as the vehicle registration documents with you. The KYC process is mandatory and this could perhaps be simpler as well while buying online through PayTM, Amazon. The banks that currently offer FASTags include HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Airtel Payments Bank, Paytm Payments Bank and many more.