Mumbai-Goa Highway: Officially called National Highway 66, the much-awaited Mumbai-Goa highway project is expected to be finished by June 2025. The new route would drastically cut the present 10- to 12-hour travel time between Mumbai and Goa to only six hours, according to Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari.

Over the years, this project has had several delays, mostly as a result of interdepartmental collaboration, legal difficulties, and land acquisition obstacles. Minister Gadkari reassured the public, however, that these challenges have been overcome and that building is currently moving quickly.

At a recent news conference, Gadkari said, “This highway will greatly enhance connectivity in the Konkan region, promoting tourism and economic growth along the route.”

The New Toll Law
In addition to cutting travel time, the government intends to streamline highway traffic by enacting a new toll policy. A satellite-based toll-collecting system will take the place of conventional toll booths. Based on the distance driven, this cutting-edge technology will track the movements of the car and automatically debit tolls from the owner’s bank account. It is anticipated that the new toll policy will be implemented in the next two weeks.

Vehicles will no longer stop at toll booths under the new regulation. Instead, when cars are watched by satellite and their license plates are read, tolls will be automatically subtracted.

How the New Toll Policy Will Operate
Two primary technologies will be used by the system:

Vehicle monitoring using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

cameras that use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) to identify cars.

Similar to how ride-sharing firms determine fares, charges will be determined by the actual distance traveled on toll roads.