Centre Plans Toll Exemption for Private Vehicles of Defence Personnel Under MLFF System

The Centre is working on a nationwide toll-exemption framework for the private vehicles of around 1.4 million active defence personnel, as the rollout of barrier-less Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) highway tolling begins to create practical problems for armed forces users. The issue has already emerged on highway stretches where MLFF has been introduced, with e-challans being generated for vehicles that are otherwise entitled to exemption under the existing system.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has started consultations with the Ministry of Defence to find a digital mechanism that can identify eligible private vehicles and allow them to pass through toll plazas without manual intervention or disruption to traffic flow. One option under discussion is to issue FASTags to such vehicles and have the annual pass cost reimbursed by the defence ministry. However, the two ministries have not yet decided which side will bear the expense. Another proposal is to use a differentiated FASTag that records the vehicle’s passage but does not trigger toll deduction.

The effort is closely tied to the pace of MLFF deployment. The system is expected to cover roughly 1,150 toll plazas across the country by the end of FY28, but the rollout is still at an early stage. At present, fewer than 10 plazas are operating under MLFF. Bids have already been called for more than 100 additional plazas, and the ministry expects another 300–400 to be bid out by the end of the current financial year. MoRTH had earlier suggested that coverage could become nearly complete by the end of this year, but implementation has proceeded more slowly than initially anticipated.

Under the current exemption regime, private vehicles belonging to armed forces personnel can avoid toll payment by showing identity cards at toll plazas. That arrangement becomes difficult to implement in MLFF systems, which remove physical barriers and manual checks. Instead, overhead gantries fitted with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras and radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers identify vehicles and process toll charges automatically as they move at highway speeds. If exemption status is not built into the digital system, eligible vehicles risk receiving e-challans for unpaid tolls.

A government official said authorities are testing the technology and trying to resolve these issues before the system is expanded nationally. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. Queries sent to MoRTH and the defence ministry were not answered.

The discussion over digitising toll exemptions is not new. In May 2026, reports said MoRTH was examining the idea of dedicated FASTags for toll-exempt vehicles, including those used by armed forces personnel, so that their movement could be recorded digitally without deductions or penalties. Official armed forces vehicles could potentially be identified through special defence number plates, with movement data deleted later for security reasons. Private vehicles are more complicated because their ownership and use are not directly linked to government departments.

Former Road Transport and Highways and Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane had said the ministry could either integrate vehicle details into its database or issue special FASTags that allow unlimited free movement. He also said another possibility would be to permit normal FASTags and have the toll paid and reimbursed by the relevant departments. According to him, MoRTH may authorise the Ministry of Defence to issue a certain number of FASTags, as mutually agreed, free of cost for official purposes in order to make the system more efficient.

The financial stakes are significant. India’s armed forces have about 1.4 million active personnel across the Army, Navy and Air Force, although the exact number of private vehicles that would qualify for exemption is not publicly known. If the existing FASTag annual pass — priced at ₹3,075 for 2026-27 and allowing up to 200 crossings of national highway and expressway toll plazas in a year — were extended to a large number of vehicles, the cost could run into several hundred crore rupees annually. For one million vehicles, the amount would be ₹307.5 crore. The final bill would depend on how many vehicles are deemed eligible and on the terms of the framework eventually agreed between the ministries.

Kuljit Singh, Partner and National Infrastructure Leader at EY India, said the arrangement would be important for ensuring smooth movement, particularly in border areas and around major defence office clusters such as the Western Command Headquarters. He added that it would also improve the overall efficiency of the MLFF system by aligning toll infrastructure with defence-related exemptions without undermining the objective of barrier-less travel.

Officials and industry experts say accurate identification, periodic validation, prevention of cloned or misused FASTags, and real-time synchronisation of databases will be essential to the credibility of the system. One option being considered is the use of differentiated FASTag identifiers or the embedding of exemption status at either the FASTag or backend account level, which could remove the need for manual checks while keeping traffic moving and preserving digital records.

The proposed framework is expected to be finalised before MLFF is rolled out nationally, with the aim of balancing the long-standing toll exemption available to armed forces personnel against the operational demands of an automated, barrier-less highway tolling system.