The length of the Indian National Highway is 1,42,126 KM (88,313 mi) connecting across the different states and the districts. And because of this extensive layout, The Indian Road transport plays a crucial role in the supply chain. Indian Road free to market is valued at $150 billion and is growing at CAGR of 12%. Tracking alone is 5% of the GDP and is growing faster than Any other sector at about 13 to 14% year on year.
But there lies a bigger problem in this sector which is, the assets are not sweated out optimally. Some of the research states that out of 30 days in a month, a track runs with a full payload for only 17 days. The main reason for these are idling, brokerage meddling, loading points, Interstate check posts etc.
Due to this, the small owners which constitute up to 80% of the population Of trucks, find it difficult to sustain. The level of dependency of the owners on the drivers has been a problem of truckers since a very long time. For eg: a trucker sitting in Delhi is very much dependent on the driver to update him on the availability of the consignment in Chennai.
To bridge this gap off dependency, many tech firms have developed applications which ensure monitoring of trucks for performance and the availability of goods for transportation will decrease the downtime and increase the sustainability out these small fleet owners. This has brought many of the drivers who have subjected to malpractices under the radar. This monitoring has created a certain level of insecurity among the drivers, which in turn has reduced their commitment towards the job.
Now when the technology has increased the connection between truckers and their fleets in a far off location, the industry gets struck by another major problem. The current fleet owners be it big operators like VRL or small operators they are all facing driver shortage problems. the trucking business is a very unorganized sector. As the literacy rates in India are growing, less and less number of people want to be identified as a driver. In an interaction With the manager at KPN logistics, Salem he expressed his disbelief when he noticed that for a job opening of accountant or a clerk, who gets paid at around RS 10,000 per month, there were more than 70 applicants. On the contrary, a job opening but a driver who gets paid around RS 25,000 per month there were no applicants. He further expressed that if this trend continues there will be a day where there will be hardly any trucks running to make the ends meet.
In the recent past the increasing fuel prices and the increase in taxes of diesel vehicle has further added on to the burden of the truck owners as the profitability is affected. Though the connectivity between the mega cities have improved the problem exists within the industry. Trucks being one of the most efficient, flexible and cheaper mode of transportation, Will it survive the road blocks? will there be an alternative for this mode of transportation? Will the price of goods be affected in the long run? What will the companies like Ashok Leyland, TATA, Bharat Benz etc. do to tackle this problem?
While roadblocks and inefficiencies are becoming common in India, the load that Indian trucks are carrying are well beyond the recommended and allowed load. We also see trucks carrying load that are oversized and protrude out of the truck. I think the saftey aspects of trucks should be heavily monitored as truck divers do not realize the seriousness.
ReplyDeleteFew things to be noted
Deletefirst every business is run to make profits, with increasing fuel prices and taxes running at the given payload might not be profitable as the tariffs on transportation also depends on the kind of goods that are transported.
Second sometimes the loads that appear huge are well with the approved payloads. light goods consume more space.