The Centre’s decision to revise axle load norms allowing greater loads on commercial vehicles, after a gap of more than three decades, is likely to benefit the road transport sector only in the short-term, says YV Eswara Rao, General Secretary of the AP Lorry Owners’ Association.
He was speaking at a panel discussion on the “Road Ahead’’ organised as a part of the third edition of the ‘Transporters Meet’, by The Hindu BusinessLine, in association with Indian Oil Corporation and YES Bank.
The new norms are to regularise the additional payload on trucks .
He also said the new norms allowing truckers to increase loads by 20-25 per cent may raise safety concerns and also affect the life-span of roads.
He agreed that thanks to GST and dispensing with checkposts, speedier movement of cargo is possible. But Rao cautioned that “the government is introducing digitisation without creating the requisite infrastructure. It brings a plethora of problems in its wake.” He said as many as 25 crore people were directly or indirectly dependent on the transport sector. The government can make the sector thrive and boost overall economic growth by giving it infrastructure status, he felt.
VS Ananda Kumar, General Manager, VRL Logistics Ltd, said GST documentation was cumbersome and time-consuming and that procedures could be simplified. There were operational difficulties and technical issues to be resolved, he added.
The shortage of drivers, he said, was a serious issue and “at any given time a significant number of our trucks in our fleet of more than 5,500 trucks are lying idle for want of drivers. Something has to be done about it.”
Driver support
DV Ramana Rao, Chief General Manager (Retail Sales), Telangana & AP, Indian Oil Corporation, said IOC was making efforts to make petrol bunks friendly to drivers and that dormitories were being set up in select bunks for their benefit.
“We are providing space to the drivers to park their trucks and rest. The safety, comfort and rest of drivers is our primary concern. We have also introduced a cashless transaction card.”
The card has been received very well by the truckers’ community, including drivers, as it could help them in arranging for fuel payments.
Jojy Daniel, Regional Business Leader, Commercial Vehicle Loans, YES Bank, said “ensuring ease of finance to the industry is the main motto of our bank. It is an evolving industry and we will do our best to help the truckers, and all those dependent on the segment.”
Several truckers raised the issue of counter-signature permits necessary for free movement of goods between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. They said in the wake of bifurcation of the State the problem had arisen and so far the two States had made no attempt to sort it out. “As a result, the truckers in both States are suffering heavily. We expect both states to respond positively and sort out the problem,” Eswara Rao said.
G Naga Sridhar, Deputy Editor, BusinessLine, moderated the discussion.