India’s highways are becoming a bigger business—not just for the companies that build and operate them, but also for the government that collects tolls and the millions of motorists and truckers who pay them. Toll collections touched ₹67,400 crore in fiscal year 2026 (FY26), even as the number of toll plaza transactions rose to 3.81 billion.
Behind these numbers is a rapidly expanding and increasingly digitized tolling network. The creation of Indian Highways Management Company Ltd (IHMCL) in 2012 and the launch of the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme in 2014 paved the way for the nationwide adoption of FASTag, turning toll collection into a rich source of data on traffic, revenues and highway concessions.
Data released by IHMCL, under the road ministry, offers a granular view of this evolving landscape: where India’s toll plazas are concentrated, which corridors generate the most revenue, who pays the most, how much of the business is controlled by private operators, and what the annual pass means for toll revenues. Mint explores:
India’s toll map
The NETC network has expanded from around 300 toll plazas in 2016 to 1,160 in March 2026, adding roughly 100 plazas a year on average. Driven by mandatory FASTag adoption and accelerated expressway construction under national corridor initiatives such as the Bharatmala Pariyojana, toll plazas remain concentrated along national highways.
As the map shows, toll plazas are concentrated in northern and western India and around major metropolitan centres such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. This spatial clustering mirrors the country’s key industrial hubs, freight corridors and port-hinterland links.
The eastern region and Himalayan states, by contrast, have relatively sparse coverage, reflecting geographical constraints and lower levels of infrastructure development.
Within this broader pattern, Rajasthan (159), Uttar Pradesh (136) and Maharashtra (96) have the largest number of toll plazas, together accounting for over one-third of the national total. This concentration reflects extensive highway networks and high volumes of freight and passenger traffic.
Collection hotspots
The country’s highest toll collections are concentrated along its busiest highway corridors. All 15 of the highest-grossing toll plazas in FY26 were located on the Golden Quadrilateral, the centrepiece of India’s highway expansion. The northwestern arm, particularly the Delhi-Mumbai corridor, dominates the list, underscoring its importance as a commercial artery.
Together, these plazas collected over ₹5,400 crore in FY26, accounting for about one-eighth of total toll collections. Of these, nine plazas are located on the Delhi-Mumbai corridor, which accounted for ₹3,200 crore, or nearly 60% of the top 15’s collections.
The Shahjahanpur toll plaza in Neemrana, Rajasthan, operated by Pink City Expressway Pvt Ltd, topped the list with toll collections amounting to ₹443 crore in FY26, up from fourth position in FY25. This was nearly eight times the average toll collection of ₹58 crore per plaza in FY26.
Higher collections at the top 15 plazas, however, are not necessarily driven by higher traffic. Their average transaction value (ATV) is 44% above the national average, while only four feature among the 15 busiest plazas.
Who pays the tolls?
In FY26, toll plaza transactions rose 14% year-on-year to 3.81 billion, and total toll collections rose 12% to ₹67,400 crore. Private vehicles (cars, jeeps and vans) accounted for 62% of transactions, but just 23% of toll revenue, reflecting their lower toll rates.
At the Shahjahanpur plaza, for instance, the one-way toll is ₹195 for a private vehicle, ₹665 for a bus or truck and more than ₹1,000 for vehicles with four or more axles.
The rollout of the FASTag annual pass in August 2025 also appears to have reduced the toll burden on private vehicles in recent quarters. Revenue from private vehicles declined even as transactions continued to rise, pointing to a lower effective toll burden on these users.
The annual pass has eased costs for frequent private-vehicle users, but India’s tolling system has long faced criticism over “tolling in perpetuity”—the continued collection of user fees even after project costs have been recovered. A Public Accounts Committee report tabled in Parliament in August 2025 flagged the issue.
The private premium
Private participation in India’s highway sector has evolved significantly over the past three decades.
Until around 2010, private players financed, built, operated and tolled roads while taking on traffic risk. Rising interest rates, over-optimistic traffic projections and mounting bank non-performing assets (NPAs) shifted focus to government-funded Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC). Since 2016, the government has sought to revive private participation through risk-sharing and asset-monetization models such as Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) and Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT).
In FY26, private concessionaires operated 27% of toll plazas but generated half of the total revenues as their ATV was about 11% higher than that of public plazas. Average collections at private plazas stood at ₹109 crore, nearly three times the ₹40 crore average for public plazas.
Yet private players’ share of toll plazas has declined from 36% in FY23. The divergence suggests that private participation is increasingly concentrated in high-traffic, high-revenue corridors.
Who rules the roads?
Around 300 private entities held highway toll concessions in FY26. The top eight players accounted for about a fifth of total toll collections, pointing to a fragmented concession landscape.
IRB Infrastructure Developers was the largest player by toll collections, generating more than ₹4,000 crore in FY26. Its portfolio includes concessions such as the Vasad toll plaza on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara highway and the Khaniwade toll plaza near Mumbai.
Larsen & Toubro () ranked second with toll revenues amounting to ₹2,358 crore, with the Vadodara (Bharthana) toll plaza under its purview.
Other listed companies include Reliance Infrastructure ( ₹1,611 crore), Ashoka Buildcon ( ₹1,131 crore), GMR ( ₹640 crore).
India has also seen growing participation by foreign institutional investors in highway concessions through vehicles such as and Safeway Concessions. The trend underscores a broader shift in private capital away from greenfield development towards the monetization of mature, revenue-generating highway assets.
The author is a PhD student in economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.