After going through this thread, there are a few pointers I noticed in common:
1. There is a group of early adopters of fastag who got this services at a much lesser premium and even free in some cases. I got ICICI tag for 99rs more than an year back.
2. There are late adopters of fastag who had to shell out more now owing to the pressure from the government with respect to deadlines.
3. Some fret about spending 500 or more now, when they had an opportunity of getting this much cheaper before, even though they were sure about travelling in toll ways.
4. Many persons have got fastag already as part of current norms while buying a new car. But among them there is still a lot of people, who have not properly linked the account to a bank whereby they have a non-functioning tag. Partly this issue is also due to bad infra provided by those vendors who provide a product but doesn't give a good customer care support or make things cumbersome to maintain.
5. There are a group of people who really doesn't need this since they feel they will never take that vehicle out of the city or even to any toll ways in their lifetime. For them definitely going for fastag doesn't make sense, but since in cities now certain parking lots are also getting RFID installed the usage of fastag is not restricted to just highway burners.
6. A handful of toll booths have got a non-functioning RFID scanner which indirectly is causing lot of time wastage and not getting that extra advantage of a fast moving queue. Personally I have seen many times the cash counter ones moving faster.
7. There are a bunch of people who fret about any new implementation by any govt, but talk high about other countries having these kind of approach. Yes other countries have a better working scanner and miles better with respect to infra, but like every product or technology there is an evolution cycle and the first product might not be the complete product and you cannot keep waiting to launch something hoping that the nth version will be the best. Enhancement is naturally part of any product. The peculiar group has a long history where they fret about from early hand signals to current ditching of usage of indicators, safety belts, helmets, speed regulators anything which talks about doing something better and yes they talk high about countries and forbid any such stuffs in their own country. They love following rules in other countries but are happy breaking them in their own country.
8. Especially during these covid times its always better to have cashless transaction where you don't need to open the window and then interact with a person who is being contracted with 1000's of vehicles & people during his/her shift. Those personnel's also feel happy if they don't have to interact directly with the customer.
9. In the commercial vehicles sector a group fret about fastag, even though they might be the highest usage of toll ways. Since these transactions are having proper bill they can always share the details to the customer asking them reimburse the amount, but definitely this has hurt a group of people who used to charge the customer, more than the actual amount to be paid in the name of tolls. The other excuse they say is they don't have time or knowledge to understand this online process but every tom and dick have a FB, Insta, Whatsapp or whatever social networking account for their business. So all this boils down about one's interest.
10. Some group of people fret about online transaction and safety surrounding fastag and question why should I go for it etc; while during de-monetization times were ready to embrace with multiple Apps like Phone, Paytm, Google-Pay, Bhim-UPI App etc and never bothered about sharing personal ID cards, bank account details or KYC proof docs, since its about sustaining their business during those times. These new payment apps was adopted not just by street vendors but also by the taxi sector.
11. There is a small group of sadistic people who will not buy fastag or drive knowingly with non-functioning tag but will make sure they get into fastag lane and then fight with personals when they need to pay fine and then instead of doing that they start moving back the lane and cause trouble to those who are following the rules. Yes such people are not extinct and they are not myth.
12. With respect to implementation, the govt should have made this free of cost, then for sure this would have been a complete different picture and they wouldn't have to make a mockery of themselves by implementing multiple deadlines. They are already making a huge money by collecting tolls and bringing in new infra they should have taken from the profit rather than squeezing the customer.
14. There is still a group of people who believe that one day govt (be it any govt), will make toll ways free after certain years of toll collection and so its wastage to buy fastag now. To them I have only one thing to say - Keep dreaming until its time to leave this world!!!
Disclaimer: Some of the points mentioned above might resemble to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events and is purely coincidental.
