Only 15% trucks supplying essentials on road

New Delhi: Transporters are finding difficult to streamline the supply chain of the essential goods with only 15 per cent of trucks on the road due to the coronavirus lockdown, the national body of transporters All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC) said.AIMTC is an apex body of Transporters - (both Cargo and Passenger) serving the industry for the last 84 years. It represents around 1 crore truckers and 55 lakhs tourist buses and operators.

"We have approximately 12.5 lakh trucks with the national permit. But during the period of lockdown, only 2 lakh to 2.5 lakh trucks with national permits are on road," Kultaran Singh Atwal, President of AIMTC told ANI.

Atwal said that the government should also allow opening up offices of the transporters engaged in transporting essential goods and issue passes for that.

Meanwhile, Rajender Kapoor, President of Delhi Goods Transport Organisation said "Our office staff can't move from loading to unloading points for supervision as they don't have passes. According to MHA guidelines, drivers don't need passes, with valid driving licences they can carry essential goods."

"We have around 1 crore trucks registered with our associations but we don't have drivers to drive trucks, no labour to load/unload essential goods as they left for their native places due to the lockdown," Kapoor said.

Kapoor said trucks to Coimbatore, Nagpur or Kolkata have been stranded due to the lockdown.

Praveen Khandelwal, General Secretary, Confederation of All India Traders suggested that the process of obtaining passes should be eased.