Bengaluru: Badly hit by demonetisation, the logistics industry which operates in cash, and has mountains of it, is ploughing it back by paying with the old notes at petrol bunks. Many of the big transport operators are also paying their driving crew and staff two months salary in advance.
But worried that these steps may not be enough to deal with the stress caused by demonetisation, the truckers are now threatening to go on a nation-wide strike.
The government has meanwhile stepped in to ease their burden by extending the deadline for presenting old denomination notes at petrol bunks from November 15 to 24. And toll booths have been instructed not to collect toll on all national highways till midnight of November 18 to give them more respite.
But whether the sector will be mollified by these steps is another matter as a recent study by the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training, (IFTRT) found that truck rentals were down by 20 to 25 per cent since demonetisation. And Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) are worried about defaults in repayment of EMIs against truck loans due to the unprecedented crisis in the truck hiring market, which is worse than the crises of 1984, 1998 and 2008.
“Transporters in many places across India are liberally giving advance money to the operators attached to them. While the toll on highways has been stopped to help them cut their operating cost, the currency demonetisation has cost them heavily,” observed Mr S.P Singh, senior Fellow and Coordinator of the IFTRT. Sadly its the small truckers and lorry operators, who are the hardest hit
