Why does FASTag have to be so complicated?

This story started with an innocuous text that dropped into my SMS inbox from ICICI Bank. “ICICI Bank FASTag will be deactivated if Know Your Vehicle verification is not completed before 15-11-25,” it said. 

One tap on the link took me to a page where I had to update vehicle details, upload the registration certificate, and add photos of the vehicle itself. That was October 30. Each time I uploaded the registration details and then tried to add photos – whether through the ICICI app or their WhatsApp bot – I was told to upload photos only after updating the registration details. And so the loop continued. The FASTag app, meanwhile, refused to load beyond the almost-home screen. I downloaded the new RajmargYatra app too, but tech-challenged me couldn’t get far.

Frustrated, I tried reading up on the issue – only to find that, as so often in today’s mediascape, the information was as useful as Cinderella’s glass slipper on a muddy riverbank. Eventually, it seemed wiser to go straight to the people who actually manage tolling: the Indian Highway Management Company Ltd (IHMCL).

A call to 1033 was answered by a pleasant voice who confirmed that my FASTag was active for now, but all KYV information had to come from the bank. Why not get in touch with them, she suggested.

So I did. The ICICI FASTag helpline (a different number from regular customer care) kept me waiting for a bit, but after 26 minutes and 59 seconds – plus step-by-step hand-holding from a very patient staffer – I finally managed to upload everything: chassis number, engine number, photos of the RC (front and back), the FASTag sticker, and photos of the front and side of the vehicle.

Twenty-five days after that ominous text, the uploads were finally done. But there was no sense of relief. The portal will now verify everything against Vaahan data before approving my documents. Officially, that takes two to three working days. Usually, I’m told, it’s a couple of hours.

Curious, I asked: what if I hadn’t completed this process? My FASTag wouldn’t be deactivated, but it would be hotlisted. Meaning: technically active, but unusable. And how soon would I be stuck at a toll booth? The answer: a vague eight to 10 days. 

On days like today, I feel like screaming at the top of my voice. Why does it have to be so complicated?

Especially considering that the intent behind this activity, as I understand, is simple enough: the good people at toll collection booths around the country should be able to identify your vehicle from your FASTag and ensure that the correct toll is collected for the correct class of vehicle. 

Not convincing

Loyalists of the establishment have offered multiple explanations behind this activity. It’s apparently going to be a safeguard against my vehicle getting stolen. It’ll prevent people from using a single FASTag for multiple vehicles. Each one seems possible in a country where corruption and bending the rules is a way of life. 

Yet, the more I think, the less probable these scenarios seem. 

For the simple reason that every piece of research that I’ve done since getting that text tells me that a FASTag can be blacklisted. Which effectively means that if I rip the FASTag (which is for a private vehicle) and stick it to a truck to evade the toll, the chap at the booth should be able to initiate the blacklisting process and prevent me from continuing the charade indefinitely. 

On the theft bit, I’m even less convinced. Why would anyone need to use a FASTag to identify a stolen car, which anyway can be identified using the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), the chassis number or the engine number and the most visible of them all – the registration number? 

Begs the question. What is this whole KYV or your-vehicle-is-cancelled gig all about? I suspect the move is as rational as introducing the Aadhar card, penalising everyone for not linking it to every other document only to have the Supreme Court state that it’s not proof of birth date and then the CEC saying it’s not proof of citizenship either. Inexplicable, right? I suspect that's what this is too. Inexplicable. 

Recalling the freedom

In the best traditions of social media let’s do a bit of a throwback. To 2014 to be exact. 

For many of us, that was the year we got our freedom. From having to dish out cash at toll plazas of course. Don’t you be naughty and keep thinking what we know you were thinking. We shall stay strictly in our lane here. So, after decades of having to keep cash (often exact change) in our vehicles, which were duly exchanged for scraps of paper before we were allowed to use highways, Indian road trippers woke up to a brand-new system of paying tolls. Get a sticker (which wasn’t particularly easy in the beginning), fix it to a certain spot on the windscreen, and, voila! you no longer needed cash in your pocket but balance in your RFID tag to go through toll booths with greater ease. 

With the government pushing hard for electronic toll collection, India on wheels was soon stickered as well. 

In FY 2016-17 of the Rs 17,942 crore that was collected from tolls by the NHAI, about Rs 661 crore came from FASTags. In FY 2024-25, nearly all of the Rs 72,390 crore has been collected electronically. It would be fair to say that the system seems to be working. 

The NHAI, however, has figured out that it can earn still more if it were not for the “loose FASTag” bogeyman. Basically, a guy who doesn’t affix the sticker but carries it around so that he or she can buy a single tag and use it on multiple vehicles. 

It’s an interesting theory, except, I can’t help but wonder how many of the 416.38 crore transactions in the previous financial year would have been done with “loose FASTags”. As usual, there is no data on that one. At least, none that I could find. 

Besides, the bogeyman would still have to drive through a toll booth, which anyway has CCTV and a human toll collection chap. Can’t be that difficult to blacklist a handheld sticker, can it? 

Apparently, the task is too difficult, so instead we, the user, are now faced with this mammoth and mandatory KYV exercise where you have to submit details of your vehicle, upload the registration certificate, a front view of the vehicle and a side view of the vehicle. 

Oh wait. Apparently the NHAI has significantly reduced this lengthy process according to some news portals. We no longer have to upload a side view of the vehicle. Strangely, my bank doesn’t seem to have received that information and I still had to upload a side view while also telling me to upload the RC, which I had already done thrice before. 

Mighty complicated, for the simple task of collecting tolls.

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