The Government of India had introduced the 10 second rule for the toll plazas in May 2021 but this implementation of it might not be what it had in mind.
According to the 10 second rule, if any vehicle has to wait for more than 10 seconds at any toll plaza, it will not have to pay the toll and can simply drive through. This rule was brought in by the government back in May 2021. The aim is to enable a smooth traffic process so that people don’t have to spend hours waiting at the toll plazas. With the introduction of FASTag, the efficiency of the road network was targeted to be increased tremendously. But in a hilarious turn of events, this 10-second rule was being implemented in a different sort of way as seen on this YouTuber Shorts.
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10 Second Rule At Toll Plaza
The video clip has been uploaded by Nikhil Rana who generally posts videos of accidents to raise awareness regarding the safety in cars. The video shows the YouTuber waiting in the queue for the toll. In the adjacent lane, the toll plaza official/police personnel is seen indicating the vehicles to move quickly without paying for the toll. Now, as opposed to not paying due to the 10-second rule, it turns out that this was done due to a VIP movement. A VIP car was supposed to pass through that lane which is why everyone was asked to drive through without paying. The same was obviously not done for other lanes highlighting the privileges and misuse of the VIP culture yet again. This marks as another blatant discrimination between VIPs and the regular public.
The government has also announced with the 10-second rule, that if the vehicles waiting in the queue at any toll plaza cross the 100 m mark, then the toll plaza officials must allow vehicles to pass through without paying toll until the line reaches within the 100 m mark again. This, again, was done to make the toll plaza operators accountable for the working and implementation of FASTag technology to digitise all tolls across the country.
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Despite such cases, we have to agree that our lives have become much better at the toll plazas post the introduction of the FASTag process. While there is always room for improvement, these are steps in the right direction.
