Telangana car owners may not benefit from Centre’s Annual Toll Pass scheme | India News
NEW DELHI: Private car owners in Telangana won’t be able to avail the Annual Toll Pass scheme for National Highways (NHs) and expressways to be launched by the Centre on Aug 15, as vehicles registered in the state have not yet been migrated to the Vahan database (central registry of vehicles). The annual pass, to be issued from next week, requires real-time validation of vehicle class through the Vahan portal.Union transport secretary V Umashankar, in a letter addressed to Telangana chief secretary last week, sought the “personal intervention” of the top state official to expedite the migration of the state’s vehicle data to Vahan portal and ensure “equitable access to the nationwide facility for road users”.In his letter, Umashankar highlighted how the Centre had reached out to the state govt in May this year for merger of state registers for driving licence (DL) and registration certificate (RC) of vehicles with the national registers —Sarathi and Vahan — but the same has not happened yet.Except Telangana, all other states have come on board, officials said. They expect the state to act quickly, as the issue is crucial for dealing with DL and RC related matters at the national level. Umashankar has said that only vehicles registered as “non-commercial car/ jeep/ van” are eligible to get the FASTag-based pass by paying Rs 3,000, granting them 200 toll-free crossings on NHs in a year.Sources said the National Highways Authority of India is giving finishing touches to the scheme and putting all infrastructure in place for starting the registration process. A special team has been trained to handle queries relating to the scheme at their call centre.
