Transporters have been repeatedly asking the government to provide relief to compensate for the business losses incurring due to the nationwide lockdown, alleging that their issues are not being looked into. Commenting on the same, a segment of transporters on Saturday announced that they may be left with no choice but to stop vehicle movement and take them off the roads.
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According to the All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC), “If urgent relief measures are not taken the day is not far away when the transport fraternity of India will be auto compelled to stop its vehicles, which invariably is the scenario on the ground.”
“The government imposed lockdowns and its apathy has pushed the road transport sector to dreadful levels… The temper and the frustration of the members from across the country were uniform and they were in unison in expressing their inability to run their vehicles and feel compelled to halt their vehicles running on roads,” AIMTC said after holding a video conference with its members.
AIMTC members have seemingly voiced their concern about the current status of transporters and truck driver community, backed by the AIMTC, who further said, “The government has failed to provide relief to this sector thus giving it a body-blow. The Extension of validity of Motor Insurance ended on May 15, 2020. Without Third-Party insurance the vehicle cannot run on the road. Its validity extension is not yet done and the members are not able to pay up for this, as an average for a single truck comes to about Rs 60,000.”
“Apart from that there are other expenses like salaries, EMIs, Taxes, Establishment cost, rentals, maintenance etc remains to be serviced, which seem highly unlikely,” AIMTC added.
Stating that about 70 per cent of the transport sector is still down, it said there is extreme financial pressure on small operators who are highly fragmented and unorganised.
“The Prime Minister’s thrust for ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and ‘Sabka Vikas’ stands to be a dumb failure for the road transport sector. Livelihood and survival of crores of people dependent on this sector is at stake, which may push them to take extreme steps, in a case no benefit or facilitation is coming forth to them,” it said.
As per reports, AIMTC has apparently already submitted a revised minimum rescue package to the government, however as of now no step has been taken to bring the package into action. According to the proposal by AIMTC, it demands that “all these statutory compliances, taxes and the fees to be paid upfront must be deferred for this Financial Year as there is no monetary inflow and business revival in short and medium term.”.