New rules to streamline toll payments effective from Monday. FASTag transactions grew by 6 per cent in December last year to 382 million, against 359 million in November. Chargeback process and cooling period as well as transaction rejection rules have been changed. Users can now dispute the amount deducted, but only after a mandatory 15-day cooling period. The system will reject such payments with ‘error code 176’ if they are inactive for more than 60 minutes before the vehicle crosses the toll and remain inactive up to 10 minutes after passing, the transaction will be declined. The new rules will affect users who delay payments or have blacklisted tags. The rules will come into force from Monday, February 17, and will impose extra penalties on users with low balance, delayed payments or blacklistedtags. The changes are aimed to reduce disputes and curb frauds, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have issued some key changes to the Fastag ecosystem.
