I did a trip by car recently from Bangalore to Neyveli and
Thanjavur and came back via Tiruchirappalli. In one place, Bangalore, I paid the toll electronically. Everywhere else the car had to stop and the toll had to be paid
manually. I paid a total of Rs 619 at 11 places. The whole trip was about 1100
km long. This made me read up on reports of such inefficient practices
elsewhere in India. This country prides itself on its software export earnings,
but its own domestic economy is often a decade or more behind adopting simple
technology to save its people time and money. It is a bit like the case of
workers in the construction industry, who build huge multi-story apartment complexes
for others. But they and their children usually live in the buildings under
construction, often without drinking water, lighting and access to toilets.
Sometimes their toddlers wander around such buildings, fall down and die.
The Centre for Internet & Society has done us a service by
republishing in its February 2016 Newsletter an insightful article by Shyam
Ponappa in the Business Standard of Feb 3, 2016 http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shyam-ponappa-bottled-up-national-assets-116020301314_1.html
Ponappa points out that the
Indian Highways Management Company was tasked in 2012 to implement Electronic
Toll Collection (ETC). He also reports that a study by IIM-C and Transport
Corporation of India in 2012 reported an annual loss of Rs 87,000 Crores due to
delays of the Delhi-Mumbai truck traffic. The study is reported to have
indicated that the average speed of the Delhi-Mumbai truck traffic to be 21
kmph! It would be worth reading up the basis for these loss calculations; they
seem to be of the order of 2% of India’s GNP in 2012!
ETC is reported to have
been introduced in 2014, but the goal of having it implemented all over India
remains a dream as of now. The transportation sector contributes over 5% of the
GNP and the road sector handles over 60% of the freight movement (these numbers
are based on relatively old information – visit http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/EXTSARREGTOPTRANSPORT/0,,contentMDK:20703625~menuPK:868822~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~theSitePK:579598,00.html )
While doing research for
writing this article I came across this website of ICICI Bank
It says that an
electronic tag can be bought for use on the Bangalore-Chennai route at Hosur,
but the publicity for this has been very poor. I have travelled on this route
several times but have never seen a sign advertising this tag. I am a Bangalore
customer of the ICICI bank but I have never received an email about this.
There are many other
examples in the Indian economy, as readers can guess, of poor management
causing huge losses. Major reforms pose their own problems, but a concerted
effort to identify easily addressable problems could speed up the growth rate
of the GNP by one or two percent. There was a time when productivity was given
national attention, but now we hear little about productivity in general. The
Niti Aayog seems to be concerned with agricultural productivity, but we do not
hear about attempts to improve productivity in other sectors of the economy.
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Stranded freight vehicles guzzling Rs.1.45 lakh-cr annually Most toll gates are yet to implement electronic collection. A friend raises a question: Is the toll collection in many places in the hands of people who will lose a source of black money if the collection is no longer in cash? Does this explain the delay in automating toll collection?
I wrote the original blog post on the topic of cash in highway toll collection in March 2016. It is now 11 months later. A lot of banned currency notes have been deposited in bank accounts since then! A few days ago I repeated the travel experience with a trip to Tamil Nadu going through most of the toll gates I had gone through during the 2016 trip. Nothing had changed with respect to digital payments as far as I could see. I noticed 2D bar-codes displayed at some toll gates but saw no one using them. It would be useful if the authorities concerned tell us what fraction of highway tolls are collected in cashless form.
I was in the backseat and asked the driver if I could give my credit card for paying the toll. He said in that case I would have to tell the person at the counter my PIN. I heard that they do not have the SIM equipped point-of-sale devices for use with credit cards.
India is known for its rituals; the current provisions for digital payments at toll collection plazas serves a valuable ritual purpose. They probably make many people would believe that we have become a cashless society, even though they are not a part of it.
I will borrow words from a well-known prayer, to write a prayer of my own:
"Where rituals do not substitute for real action,
into that land of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!"
(Visit The Master's Own Words )
Weaker elements of society are switching to digital payments as they have no choice. My newspaper supplier took Rs 290 over PayTM. I asked the next guy who turned up, the milkman, if he had PayTM. No, he said, but he is talking to someone about it. He assured me that next month onwards, he would accept online payment to his bank account. The dry cleaner has already switched. Apna Haat, which sells vegetables from a small shop nearby has been accepting money over PayTM for a few months.
However, when I go through the tollgate to go to Tamil Nadu, I find that the poor dears who run the National Highways Authority collect hardly any tolls digitally. Should I ask my newspaperman to advise them? Or should I ask Apna Haat?
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