Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has announced that government will implement GPS-based toll collection within a year.
Recently Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that the government will do away with toll booths in the next one year. This means, that the toll collection will be done through GPS in the future. The money will be deducted from your account on the basis of GPS imaging.
However, it will also allow government officials to monitor all cars on Indian roads in real-time. The government is planning to eliminate all physical tolls by 2022 and will make GPS-based FASTags compulsory for vehicles plying on Indian roads. Nitin Gadkari also said that new vehicles will come fitted with FASTags and the golvernment will provide FASTags for older vehicles free of cost.
But what was not revealed was that you will also have to install the approved GPS module in your car to ensure GPS-based toll collection. This GPS module will share your real-time location data to toll collection authorities for the collection of toll charges. This means that the government will have direct access to your car's real-time location all the time and it can monitor any car in India.
Gadkari also told the parliament that GPS-based toll collection will prevent theft of toll and GST evasion by vehicles with no FASTags. It will enable government to easily track defaulters. He also revealed that around 93 percent of vehicles are paying toll through FASTag.
He also announced to get rid of too many toll booths on certain routes.
It is worth noting that all the connected cars now already come with a GPS module that is used to access digital maps. And if you are carrying a smartphone with location enabled, it also works similar to a GPS-tracking tool. However, data collected by these GPS modules is not shared with any government personnel in real-time.
The idea of GPS-based toll collection at this point in time appears like that it will enable government to collect GPS data of vehicles in real-time and it might trigger privacy and surveillance fears.
