After choosing Paytm as a partner for selling e-toll tags, NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) has granted contract to Paytm for managing 40 out of 350 toll plazas across the country.
Hence, 11% of all toll plazas in India would be now managed and operated by Paytm for automatic deduction of toll charges.
Raghav Chandra, chairman for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), confirmed that under the contract, various highways across different states have been now converted into Paytm-operated toll plazas.
As per some analysts, this move has been made because compared to e-toll tags, direct debit of toll charges from Paytm wallet can prove to be faster exercise. In the case of e-toll tags, the user has to recharge his account after every few days; but with Paytm, the driver will zip past the toll plaza as the charges would be directly debited from the mobile wallet.
Under Govt. of India’s recent announcements, toll plazas would be now entirely human-free, as the process of toll collection would be fully automatic. The tolls where Paytm has been granted contract, there would be no manned gateways.
For selling e-toll tags, Paytm along with Punjab National Bank, SBI and IDFC banks were selected as partners.
This is indeed a huge improvisation from NPCI’s earlier stand, wherein they had stopped partnerships between NHAI and mobile wallets.
Paytm’s Offline Transactions Increase
Meanwhile, due to demonetisation move unleashed since November 8th, there has been a sharp increase in Paytm’s offline transactions. After we reported that Paytm has crossed 50 million downloads in 5 days, another set of reports says that Paytm has hit Rs 150 crore of offline transactions in 5 days, which is another record for the mobile wallet.
Between November 10 and November 16, total of 25 million offline transactions were recorded by Paytm, whose value was Rs 150 crore.
As per Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president at Paytm, offline transactions earlier accounted for 50% of their overall transactions, which has now increased to 68-70%.
Incidentally, this sharp increase in offline transactions comes a week after Paytm introduced a new feature to search nearby merchants who accept Paytm as a mode of payment.
Paytm is now expecting more offline transactions, Indian Railway is also planning to issue rail tickets directly from the mobile wallets; and now they will also collect toll charges from lakhs of vehicles.
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