NEW DELHI: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Tuesday gave NOC to the MCD for setting up of the two gantries for multi-lane free flow (MLFF) system, which will make the collection of entry fee and environment compensation charge (ECC) seamless. The NOCs for installing gantries at the remaining 10 other locations on NHs will be issued soon, officials said.The NOCs came for the MLFF system at Jhinjholi Border (UER-II)/Harewali and Kundli Border/KGT Main on NH-44. Officials said that joint site verification and technical feasibility assessment of the proposed locations is being undertaken by NHAI officials in coordination with MCD and after completion of the site inspections and receipt of feasibility reports, the matters are being processed for NOCs.TOI has learnt that NHAI officials were surprised that MCD wrote to the highways authority for NOC only on August 7 even when the Supreme Court in Jan itself had directed the municipal body to implement barrier-free MLFF system integrated with RFID and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) at all 126 Toll Collection Points in Delhi by October 2026. The objective is to reduce vehicular stoppage and congestion at Delhi’s border entry points.Following the MCD’s letter, NHAI held a meeting on Aug 19 where the issue was discussed in detail and the authority had agreed to give NOCs with condition that the proposed system should ensure 100% barrier-free MLFF operation on NHAI stretches and that no manual toll collection or intervention should adversely affect the smooth movement of traffic.Though the Centre has been pursuing MCD to adopt FASTag-based tolling, which will eliminate the need to have multiple tags, the MCD has not yet come on board and it continues to have a separate RFID tag.
