The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued guidelines to standardise the design and infrastructure of toll plazas on national highways with four lanes or more, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said on Friday, November 6, 2026. The policy circular sets one standard design for such plazas so they can run barrier-less Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) tolling, and covers plaza layout, lane configuration, gantries, road infrastructure, lighting, signage and supporting facilities.

Source: Press Information Bureau (PIB), via LearnThroughPractice

Under MLFF, there is no booth and no barrier to stop at: overhead gantries use RFID readers to pick up a vehicle's FASTag and automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to read its registration number, and the toll is charged while the vehicle keeps moving. The system is expected to remove queues at plazas, cut waiting time and reduce fuel wasted in stop-and-go traffic.

Source: Kasba (reporting the PIB notice)

4 lanes +highways covered — the standard applies to national highways of four lanes and above
Future + ongoingprojects covered — the design applies to all future and under-construction highway projects
FASTag + ANPRthe two reads an MLFF gantry makes — RFID tag and number plate — as the vehicle passes

The guidelines apply to all future and under-construction projects. Projects still at the Detailed Project Report (DPR) stage will build the new design into their documents, while projects already awarded or under construction will adopt the changes through the applicable contractual provisions. The notice also stresses adequate lighting, signage and electronic variable message signs (VMS) so highway users get advance information and guidance at toll plazas.

The standardisation follows a series of MLFF launches through 2026, including in Gujarat in May, on the Delhi-Jaipur NH-48 and at Gharaunda on NH-44 in June, and in Tamil Nadu in October. The government's release gives no date for removing barriers from today's existing plazas and no cost figure for the changeover, so drivers on older highways should not expect their current plazas to change overnight.

For regular highway users — including the truck drivers who cross multiple states every week — the change matters at the design stage: every new four-lane and wider highway will now be drawn with free-flow tolling built in from the start, rather than retrofitted plaza by plaza.