No verification of disabled car owners at toll plazas

JODHPUR: After exempting the differently abled car owners registered under inability carriage from paying toll at the toll plazas on highways, the government has now also relieved them from verification of their documents at toll plazas to avail the exemption.
With the issuance of free ‘Fastag’ cards to the differently abled car owners, they will not be required to verify their status at the toll plazas.Unlike the normal ‘Fastag’ cards, they won’t have to pay any amount for the recharge of these cards.
Jodhpur’s Jagdish Lohar, who received the first such card in the state, said that till now despite being exempted from toll charges, the differently abled with registered vehicle under inability carriage, had to furnish the documents to the toll operator, which would take time and lead to queuing up of the vehicles.
“Considering this, a zero value Fastag card has been issued to me by the ICICI Bank, which has an electronic chip in it. Now, I don’t need to stop by to show my documents at the toll plaza,” said Lohar.
Usually, general vehicles with Fastag cards have to get them recharged like a pre-paid card and the amount payable at the toll plaza is automatically deducted from the card value. But, in case of disabled Fastag cards, the owners will not have to get them recharged ever.
Lohar said that the tolls are free for the registered inability carriage vehicles as government will reimburse toll contractors for their free passing.
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had issued a notification to this effect on October 13, 2016, giving authority to the ICICI Bank to issue these cards for inability carriage vehicles.
However, till March this year, not a single card had been issued. After pursuing the matter for long, Lohar succeeded in obtaining the state’s first Fastag card for differently abled car owners registered under inability carriage.
Lohar recounts that he also had to put up a fight for getting a customized vehicle for differently abled since no information was provided by the car dealers, who wanted to sell regular vehicles to them.
These customized vehicles are made available by the manufacturers directly on request.