Workshop on Tolling of National Highways and Implementation of Electronic Toll Collection Begins

Workshop on Tolling of National Highways and Implementation of Electronic Toll Collection Begins
Electronic Toll Collection Across all the Toll Plazas on NHs by Year End -Shri Vijay Chibber

A day long workhop on tolling of National Highways and implementation of Electronic Toll Collection in the country began here this morning. Speaking on the occasion Shri Vijay Chibber, the Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said that the Government has decided to implement RFID (Radio Frequency ID) based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system across National Highways. The Ministry aims to implement ETC across all the toll plazas on National Highways in the country by the end of this year. The RFID technology shall expedite the clearing of traffic at toll plazas and the need of carrying cash shall also be eliminated when Toll plazas shall be duly integrated with each other throughout India. 

Elaborating the steps taken Shri Chibber said, Government has issued orders to incorporate ETC lanes as a mandatory clause in the contracts awarded for all the Highways projects. Necessary amendments have already been made in the Central Motor Vehicle Rule, 1989 for fitment of RFID tag on vehicles for ETC. A pilot project on Interoperability of ETC system for 10 toll plazas between Mumbai (Charoti) and Ahmadabad has already been tested and successfully operational at present. For implementing ETC on pan India basis, a new Company “Indian Highways Management Company Limited”(IHMCL) with equity participation from NHAI (25%), Concessionaires (50%) and Financial Institutions (25%) has already been constituted. The objectives of the new Company are collection of toll through ETC and to manage the project strategically, administratively, legally technically, commercially and to provide services of a central system which includes toll transaction clearing house operations , help desk support and setting up of call centers for Incident Management. 

IHMCL has already finalized the Service Provider Agreement for Central Clearing House (CCH) Services for Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) with the ICICI Bank and has placed orders for 1st consignment of hardware’s for 20 toll plazas on NHAI managed highways stretches. The Ministry proposes to launch a seamless ETC service on the NH – 8 from Delhi to Mumbai in a couple of weeks. 

National Highways are tolled,under the provisions of the National Highways Act,1956.The first major National Highway stretch brought under toll was Kotputli-Amer section of NH-8 with effect from March 30,1998.Presently, 15,506 Km length of the National Highways is under tolling through 302 Toll Plazas. 

There are 374 toll Plazas in the country.Out of these 164 are underBOT(Toll),138 are under public funded and 72 are on bridges. 

Earliar Shri Alkesh Sharma ,Joint Secretary ,Ministry RTH welcomed the participants. The senior officers of the RTH Ministry, representatives from the states and UTs, transport organizations and other stakeholders are participating in the workshop.

Top and Bottom Parliamentary Constituencies in Terms of Voter Turnout in General Elections 2014

Top and Bottom Parliamentary Constituencies in Terms of Voter Turnout in General Elections 2014

The 16^th General Elections witnessed a record voter turnout of 66.4%. Dhubri of Assam is the parliamentary constituency that recorded the highest turnout at 88.22% followed by Nagaland at 87.82%; Srinagar of J&K recorded the lowest turnout at 25.90%, followed by Anantnag of the same state.

Table 1: Top 10 Parliamentary Constituencies in terms of Voter Turnout

Sl. No	Parliamentary Constituency	State/UT	Voter Turnout
1	Dhubri	Assam	88.22%
2	Nagaland	Nagaland	87.82%
3	Tamluk	West Bengal	87.59%
4	Bishnupur	West Bengal	86.72%
5	Lakshadweep	Lakshadweep	86.61%
6	Kanthi	West Bengal	86.61%
7	Bardhaman Purba	West Bengal	86.21%
8	Tripura West	Tripura	85.92%
9	Basirhat	West Bengal	85.45%
10	Birbhum	West Bengal	85.33%
Source: Election Commission of India

Table 2: Bottom 10 Parliamentary Constituencies in terms of Voter Turnout

Sl. No	Parliamentary Constituency	State/UT	Voter Turnout
1	Srinagar	Jammu & Kashmir	25.90%
2	Anantnag	Jammu & Kashmir	28.84%
3	Baramulla	Jammu & Kashmir	39.13%
4	Kalyan	Maharashtra	42.88%
5	Patna Sahib	Bihar	45.33%
6	Bhind	Madhya Pradesh	45.62%
7	Nalanda	Bihar	47.22%
8	Mumbai North Central	Maharashtra	48.61%
9	Arrah	Bihar	48.75%
10	Bansgaon	Uttar Pradesh	49.88%
Source: Election Commission of India

State-Wise Voter Turnout in General Elections 2014

State-Wise Voter Turnout in General Elections 2014
Female Voter Turnout Higher Than Male in 16 States /UTS.

The highest turnout in the 2014 Lok Sabha Election was recorded in the State of Nagaland (87.82 %) and the lowest turnout was recorded in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (49.52 %).

The highest male turnout was reported in Nagaland (88.15%) while the highest female turnout was reported in Lakshadweep (88.42%). Female voter turnout (in percentage) was higher than male turnout in 16 States and UTs.

Table 1 State-Wise Voter turnout in 2014 General Election

Sl No	State/UT	Electors		Voters		Voter Turnout
		Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Total Voter Turnout
1	Andaman & Nicobar Islands	1,42,782	1,26,578	1,01,178	89,150	70.86%	70.43%	70.66%
2	Andhra Pradesh	3,26,70,930	3,22,67,820	2,43,52,913	2,40,05,632	74.54%	74.39%	74.47%
3	Arunachal Pradesh	3,79,627	3,79,760	2,89,291	3,07,665	76.20%	81.02%	78.61%
4	Assam	97,87,209	90,98,065	78,76,763	72,09,120	80.48%	79.24%	79.88%
5	Bihar	3,40,92,938	2,96,68,858	1,87,79,230	1,71,06,136	55.08%	57.66%	56.28%
6	Chandigarh	3,33,621	2,81,593	2,44,956	2,08,499	73.42%	74.04%	73.71%
7	Chattisgarh	89,15,783	87,07,266	63,20,693	59,34,886	70.89%	68.16%	69.54%
8	Dadra & Nagar Haveli	1,06,215	90,402	87,800	77,486	82.66%	85.71%	84.06%
9	Daman & Diu	57,011	54,816	42,378	44,855	74.33%	81.83%	78.01%
10	Goa	5,28,308	5,32,469	3,95,766	4,21,234	74.91%	79.11%	77.02%
11	Gujarat	2,12,29,092	1,93,74,012	1,42,59,115	1,15,64,888	67.17%	59.69%	63.60%
12	Haryana	87,16,612	73,81,137	63,51,584	51,43,566	72.87%	69.69%	71.41%
13	Himachal Pradesh	24,74,430	23,35,641	15,69,632	15,28,869	63.43%	65.46%	64.42%
14	Jammu & Kashmir	38,02,021	34,00,142	19,27,584	16,39,279	50.70%	48.21%	49.52%
15	Jharkhand	1,06,85,149	96,41,594	68,60,476	61,22,464	64.21%	63.50%	63.87%
16	Karnataka	2,35,86,223	2,26,25,886	1,61,65,832	1,48,73,056	68.54%	65.73%	67.17%
17	Kerala	1,17,34,258	1,25,92,391	86,78,185	92,97,708	73.96%	73.84%	73.89%
18	Lakshadweep	25,433	24,489	21,585	21,654	84.87%	88.42%	86.61%
19	Madhya Pradesh	2,53,09,830	2,28,08,210	1,67,34,556	1,29,05,240	66.12%	56.58%	61.60%
20	Maharashtra	4,27,43,156	3,79,74,127	2,67,14,578	2,20,04,266	62.50%	57.95%	60.36%
21	Manipur	8,71,431	9,02,894	6,85,427	7,27,210	78.66%	80.54%	79.62%
22	Meghalaya	7,77,639	7,89,602	5,24,774	5,53,284	67.48%	70.07%	68.79%
23	Mizoram	3,46,219	3,55,951	2,16,167	2,17,034	62.44%	60.97%	61.69%
24	Nagaland	6,00,490	5,82,458	5,29,325	5,09,585	88.15%	87.49%	87.82%
25	NCT OF Delhi	70,51,098	56,60,138	46,53,522	36,18,244	66.00%	63.93%	65.07%
26	Orissa	1,51,94,309	1,40,01,732	1,10,32,523	1,04,99,752	72.61%	74.99%	73.75%
27	Puducherry	4,32,048	4,69,309	3,51,360	3,88,657	81.32%	82.81%	82.10%
28	Punjab	1,03,27,116	92,80,892	72,62,625	65,82,507	70.33%	70.93%	70.61%
29	Rajasthan	2,26,38,323	2,03,31,124	1,46,27,976	1,24,82,068	64.62%	61.39%	63.09%
30	Sikkim	1,90,886	1,79,725	1,58,222	1,50,745	82.89%	83.88%	83.37%
31	Tamil Nadu	2,75,71,785	2,75,42,720	2,02,49,949	2,03,70,491	73.44%	73.96%	73.70%
32	Tripura	12,17,575	11,71,244	10,35,722	9,88,137	85.06%	84.37%	84.72%
33	Uttar Pradesh	7,60,71,444	6,28,94,376	4,49,79,619	3,61,12,683	59.13%	57.42%	58.35%
34	Uttarakhand	37,51,098	33,78,841	22,68,767	21,23,123	60.48%	62.84%	61.60%
35	West Bengal	3,26,89,449	3,01,43,679	2,68,86,706	2,47,35,849	82.25%	82.06%	82.16%
	Total	43,70,51,538	39,70,49,941	29,32,36,779	26,05,65,022	67.09%	65.63%	66.40%