Economic activity pickup to help India record all time high toll collection of Rs1 trillion in FY27
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s national highway toll collections are projected to breach the landmark ₹1 trillion mark in FY27, a surge fuelled by an aggressive expansion of high-speed corridors and a fundamental shift in how the country charges for road use. Internal government projections seen by Mint suggest a 25% jump in revenue to ₹75,000 crore in FY26, up from ₹61,408 crore in FY25.
This trajectory is underpinned by a resilient 7.4% GDP growth forecast and a 15% year-on-year rise in traffic volume recorded through December. Beyond organic traffic growth, the government is banking on a technological overhaul. The ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) plans to roll out a satellite-based Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) system nationwide by late 2026, which is expected to plug leakages and add at least ₹6,000 crore to the annual collections.
The surge in collections comes as the Union government shifts back to the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model, aiming to use predictable cash flows to reduce the National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) reliance on the federal budget and recycle capital into new infrastructure projects. The data supports this positive outlook. The FASTag user base has reached 8 crore, with a 75-25% split between private and commercial users.
Toll revenue through the existing FASTag system surged over 15% year-on-year to exceed ₹50,000 crore in the first three quarters of FY26. This growth occurs against a backdrop of steady macroeconomic performance. India’s GDP growth averaged 8% in the first half of the current fiscal and is projected at 7.4% for FY26, per National Statistics Office (NSO) estimates.
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