COVID-19 | Measures to bring the trucking sector back on the road

Representative Image

Sharif Qamar

COVID-19 has taken a huge toll on transportation as the entire demand-production-supply chain has witnessed a severe turmoil. Trucking services, with its unique advantage of door-to-door connectivity, is restricted to essential items and emergency passenger services segments. It is the worst hit of the entire transport systems, given its sheer size and reach. As per the estimates of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, freight carried by road transportation, in terms billion tonne kilometres, is three-and-a-half times larger than what is carried by the railway system.

India’s trucking industry is highly fragmented, with an enormous share of individually-owned & operated trucks — about 75-80 percent. The number of jobs in the sector, direct and indirect, is significantly high — to the tune of 40-50 million. Among them are large number of daily-wage earners and contractual workers for loading and unloading purposes. There has been an acute shortage of workers as many of them are migrants. There is also a shortage of drivers as most of them are unwilling to go to distant trips leaving behind their close ones.

Truckers who are operating in these challenging times, carrying essential items such as medicines, fruits and vegetables, food-grain, etc. are doing so at a huge cost. Typically, a trucker books cargo for return journey and given the current situation there is hardly any return cargo, leading to a higher degree of empty runs and lost earnings. Furthermore, truck drivers are also facing difficulties in operating on highways crossing state borders in a restrictive scenario. As a result, truck operators or trucks driven by owners are offering their services at a premium rate.

In the short term, adequate measures should be taken by the government to ensure that the worst-affected truckers are taken care of. Relief measures such as deferred insurance and EMI payment, and temporary toll exemptions on National Highways have been introduced by the government during the lockdown period. These measures are likely to give some relief to the transporters and truck operators, but not entirely ease the hardships faced by them. Nonetheless, these are important steps that would provide some degree of financial comfort to the industry.

Other short-term support measures such as an exemption or moratorium period for road taxes and goods and services tax (GST), lowering diesel price commensurate to the international prices, and compensating the loss of earnings incurred by the operators involved in the transportation of essential commodities could also be considered by the government.

With regard to dealing with the pandemic situation, the governments should set up healthcare kiosks at mandis (markets) across India. Such screening and preventive facilities should focus on the safety of those involved in the value chain, including the truck drivers and cleaners, as well as those employed for loading/unloading of the trucks. This would involve an immense degree of coordination and scaling up by the relevant agencies and departments such as the agriculture produce and marketing corporations, health and transport departments, etc.

Road transportation is a dependent sector — primarily on manufacturing industry, particularly the micro, small and medium industries (MSMEs), a huge informal sector, agriculture, domestic and international trade, flow of export and import, and construction, all of which are also facing a severe downturn due to the pandemic.

Turnaround in the trucking industry will, therefore, be subject to how fast the aforementioned sectors bounce back. As a result, the government’s action would have a larger bearing on how soon the trucking industry is back on track. As part of its long-term strategy, the Government of India’s investment plan, which has been announced in the recent past, needs to be fast-tracked to enable infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing and export-import (EXIM) sectors growing at a faster rate.

The trucking industry will be at the forefront of financial crisis due to the pandemic compared to the government-backed rail transport or corporate-backed aviation sector. It also becomes the responsibility of the government to take the current disruption as an opportunity and come up with measures to protect the vulnerable section employed in the fragmented trucking industry. The government should formulate a social safety framework for truck drivers, conductors as well as those daily wagers dependent on the trucking industry. The framework should focus on job certainty, financial coverage, insurance, etc. and should be permanent in nature to deal with future natural or health calamities.

Sharif Qamar, Associate Fellow and Area Convenor, Centre for Sustainable Mobility, TERI. Views are personal.