Vehicles wait in long queues at the Kherki-Daula toll plaza on the first day of the implementation of the FASTag. (Photo| PTI)
GURUGRAM: A more than two-kilometre long traffic jam was witnessed at the Kherki Daula toll plaza on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway (NH-48) during peak hours on the first day on Tuesday after the dedicated FASTag lanes order was rolled out.
The FASTag lanes order came into effect from Monday midnight. The toll management authority had deployed a number of Traffic Marshals to clear the traffic snarls.
As expected, long traffic jams were witnessed at the toll plaza with all 25 lanes reserved for vehicles fitted with FASTags. The situation worsened during the rush hours with vehicles queued up for more than two kilometres, specially from Jaipur towards Delhi.
However, a traffic police personnel said the movement of traffic was slow due to a tractor-trolley overturning just ahead of the toll plaza.
Officials of the Millennium City Expressway Private Limited (MCEPL), the concessionaire, said traffic jams were caused as 20 per cent of the vehicles do not have FASTags. It is causing a lot of harassment to the commuters.
"We have installed a New Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag readers to read FASTags quickly and multiple stalls for the sale of FASTags have been set up at the toll plaza to ensure vehicle owners can buy these," an official said.
To avoid inconvenience to motorists, we have stated scanning FASTags manually so that the traffic snarls can be avoided, the official added.
"Cash users entering the dedicated lanes and the FASTag users not having sufficient balance are the primary reasons for the long waiting time in dedicated FASTag lanes. Due to poor quality tags, handheld machines are used to read them which consumed time," he said.
A Traffic Marshal, in-charge of three lanes, said he used the machine to read the tags of several vehicles on Tuesday.
"Nearly 80,000 vehicles passed through the toll plaza in a day, in which nearly 20 per cent motorists do not have FASTags on their vehicles," the officials claimed.
"More than 50 Marshals each were deployed in the two shifts during the day to guide the vehicles to the lanes as per their mode of payment. Also, the number of marshals with handheld machines have also been increased."
Traffic Inspector Anil said 50 police personnel each were deployed during the three shifts against the 20 earlier to handle the traffic situation. He described the situation as "not so bad as expected" and hoped that it would normalise soon.
Aman Tuteja, a commuter with FASTag, said,"It took me 40 minutes in the morning to cross over to Gurugram on the way to Delhi."
