NEW DELHI: Private car owners in Telangana may not be able to avail the Centre’s soon-to-be-launched Annual Toll Pass scheme for National Highways and expressways, as the state’s vehicle registration data has not yet been integrated into the central Vahan database — the national registry of vehicles.
The scheme, which is scheduled to roll out on August 15, allows non-commercial car, jeep, and van owners to purchase a FASTag-based annual pass for ₹3,000, granting them up to 200 toll-free trips on national highways over a year. However, real-time verification of a vehicle’s class through the Vahan portal is mandatory to access the benefit.
Union Transport Secretary V. Umashankar, in a letter to Telangana’s Chief Secretary last week, requested urgent action to migrate the state’s vehicle data to the central system. He emphasized that this step is crucial to ensuring “equitable access to the nationwide facility for road users.”
Umashankar also pointed out that the Centre had reached out to the Telangana government as early as May 2024 regarding the integration of state-level driving licence (DL) and registration certificate (RC) data with national databases — Sarathi (for DLs) and Vahan (for RCs). Despite repeated communications, no progress has been made, officials said.
“Every other state has already completed the migration,” a transport ministry official confirmed. “Telangana’s delay is not only affecting its citizens’ access to this new scheme but also complicates DL and RC-related services at the national level.”
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is currently finalizing the scheme and setting up necessary infrastructure, including a dedicated call center team trained to address queries about the toll pass.
Until Telangana integrates its vehicle records with the Vahan portal, its private vehicle owners will remain ineligible for the scheme.
