Soon FASTag may be used to buy insurance, pay challans

NEW DELHI: You may soon be able to use your vehicle’s FASTag to pay traffic challans, parking fee, insurance premium and for EV charging, in addition to highway tolls. With nearly 11 crore FASTags issued by banks, the govt is exploring ways to expand its use as a flexible payment tool.To take this forward and firm up the next phase of FASTag growth, the road transport and highways ministry and the NHAI on Wednesday held a brainstorming workshop with top officials from the finance ministry and fintech firms. Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said through collaboration with fintechs and other stakeholders, the govt aims at expanding the utility of FASTag into a robust platform that will “enhance user convenience, streamline transport and mobility services”.Sources said road transport secretary V Umashankar said while FASTag has largely introduced manless tolling and eliminate barriers this can be used for other purposes linked to vehicles, such as paying for fuel, insurance premium and traffic challan, as the govt has enforced the ‘one vehicle, one tag’ rule.On the prospect of allowing insurance companies to issue FASTag to increase coverage of insured vehicles from 50% to 75%-90% in three years, the secretary said this is possible but there is a need to cleaning the ‘Vahan’ database, which has around 7.5 crore inactive vehicles.