NHAI launches giftable annual FASTag pass for Diwali season

The National Highways Authority of India has timed a new offering to arrive just as families begin planning their Diwali travels: an annual FASTag pass that can be gifted through a smartphone app. The pass, which launched in mid-August, has already attracted 25 lakh users and processed 5.67 crore transactions in its first two months—a pace that suggests the idea has landed well.

The mechanics are straightforward. Someone with the Rajmargyatra app can select the 'Add Pass' option, enter a vehicle number and the contact details of whoever they want to gift the pass to, and complete a quick OTP verification. Within two hours, the annual pass activates on the FASTag already attached to that vehicle. The recipient then has a year of toll-free travel across roughly 1,150 toll plazas on India's national highways and expressways, or until they've crossed 200 toll plazas—whichever comes first. The one-time cost is Rs. 3,000.

For regular highway users, the arithmetic is simple. Instead of repeatedly recharging a FASTag account, a driver can pay once and travel without thinking about tolls for twelve months. The pass works on all non-commercial vehicles that already have a valid FASTag, which means there's no hardware to buy or install. Officials describe it as a way to make long-distance travel less of a logistical puzzle, especially during peak travel seasons when toll plazas can slow traffic.

The gifting angle is the seasonal hook. Diwali is when millions of Indians travel to see family or take holidays. Positioning an annual toll pass as a gift—something useful, something that keeps giving throughout the year—is a deliberate move to make highway convenience feel like a present rather than just a transaction. The Rajmargyatra app handles the entire process, so someone in Delhi can gift a pass to a relative in Mumbai without either of them visiting a toll plaza or a bank.

The numbers suggest the product is working. In just over two months, 25 lakh people have adopted it. That's not a niche feature; that's a significant portion of India's highway-using population deciding that a fixed annual fee beats the friction of constant recharges. The 5.67 crore transactions recorded so far mean the average user is crossing toll plazas regularly, not just buying the pass and letting it sit.

What's notable is that this isn't a discount or a subsidy. NHAI isn't giving away free tolls. Instead, it's offering a different payment model—one that trades the flexibility of pay-as-you-go for the certainty of a fixed annual cost. For someone who drives the highways frequently, that trade makes sense. For someone who drives occasionally, it might not. The gifting mechanism lets people who know they'll use it heavily give it to others who will benefit, which is a way of expanding the user base beyond those who would have bought it for themselves.

The pass is applicable across the national highway network, which means it works whether someone is commuting between cities or taking a long cross-country road trip. That breadth of coverage is what makes it genuinely useful as a gift—it's not limited to one route or one region. A pass gifted in October can be used for Diwali travel, year-end holidays, and regular commutes through the following summer.