Hyderabad: Toll plazas to get e-pos machines

Hyderabad: Managements of toll plazas have equipped their cash counters with e-pos machines to facilitate payment of toll tax which re-starts on Friday midnight.

One or two gates at the toll plazas will be dedicated for vehicles equipped with cash pre-loaded RFID devices, and the remaining gates will accept payment through debit and credit cards and mobile wallets.

Toll plaza managements have put up banners 2-km earlier, requesting motorists to tender exact change. “We will accept even Rs 2,000 notes if the staff have sufficient change,” said Mr Sridhar Reddy of GMR that runs the toll plaza at Panthangi in Yadadri district on the Vijayawada national highway.

The staff at toll plazas on the Vijayawada, Bengaluru, Nagpur, and Mumbai national highways said that old Rs 500s would also be accepted in case of heavy vehicles who pay Rs 200 or more in toll tax.

While e-pos machines will be a big relief for private vehicle owners, allowing them to swipe the card instead of paying in cash, the Goods Transporters Association said that a majority of truck drivers don’t have debit or credit cards.

The Association's chairman, A K Agarwal, said that demonitisation and restriction on cash withdrawals from banks has dealt a death blow to the transport business.

"There are about 1.50 lakh trucks in Telangana and about 2 lakh in Andhra Pradesh. In all there are 70 lakh transport trucks in India. About 80 per cent of these trucks will be stranded for want of cash. We transporters do not have even old Rs 500 currency. The transport business is purely cash-based and toll collection from Friday midnight is going to have its impact on the business," he said.

Transporters said they have left it to God. If normalcy is not restored, most of them will have no choice but to down shutters and go back to their villages.