The Indian Government will launch an electronic toll collection (ETC) programme across the country’s national highways on 27 October.

The Indian Press Information Bureau said in a statement: "ETC has already been installed at 55 toll plazas and their integration with Central Clearing House operators has almost been completed.

"A pilot project for an interoperable ETC system of ten toll plazas between Mumbai and Ahmadabad has already been tested and seamless ETC on this section is successfully in operation."

"ETC has already been installed at 55 toll plazas and their integration with Central Clearing House operators has almost been completed."

The move by the government came after witnessing several problems in collecting tolls due to lack of uniformity in various sections of national highways in the country.

In order to implement ETC across the country, the Indian Highways Management Company was formed under the 1956 Companies Act, which aims to collect toll through ETC system and manage the entire project technically and commercially.

The firm will also provide services such as toll transaction clearing house operations, helpdesk support and the setting up of call centres for incident management and intelligent transport systems.

In addition to deploying ETC systems, the radio frequency identification tags have been fitted on vehicles under the 1989 Central Motor Vehicle Rules.