[Mustang Sammy]

So many years after introduction, the Fastag system is still buggy and prone to failure.
Almost every day I see lanes backed up at the Vashi toll booth due to malfunctioning readers, requiring staff to use handheld machines.
The unreliability of the infrastructure is “solved” by placing tons of people to manually flag down cars and ensure the tag is read (and the toll/hafta is collected) before they are allowed to go their way. See below for an example.
The same problem of malfunctioning readers is also far too common on the Mumbai-Pune routes (both the old highway and the expressway), and have even seen it on the spanking new Atal Setu, where vehicles had to back out of a tollbooth that had stopped working and enter another one.

What will it take to get our infrastructure to be designed and built to last?

[alpha1]

The technology is very sound, and you can see its stellar performance in Japan (that shouldn't be a surprise)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZUIveFSutU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OKf8LTtg3E

The RFID tag scanner (actually radio frequency transmitter cum receiver device with antenna) that are mounted on the tolls are typically bought in India using L1 (lowest price) tendering process. The toll roads are build own operate by Private operators - what incentive do they have for the buying best (expensive) technology?

What will it take to get our infrastructure to be designed and built to last?

Nitin Gadkari should answer this question, since technically it is very much possible.