New Delhi, Aug. 19 -- India's highways are becoming a bigger business-not just for the companies that build and operate them, but also for the government that collects tolls and the millions of motorists and truckers who pay them. Toll collections touched Rs.67,400 crore in fiscal year 2026 (FY26), even as the number of toll plaza transactions rose to 3.81 billion.

Behind these numbers is a rapidly expanding and increasingly digitized tolling network. The creation of Indian Highways Management Company Ltd (IHMCL) in 2012 and the launch of the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme in 2014 paved the way for the nationwide adoption of FASTag, turning toll collection into a rich source of data on traffic, revenues and highway ...