September has brought some relief to the trucking industry as freight rates on trunk routes saw an increase of 4-5 per cent on the back of strong cargo flow from agriculture and small and medium industry segments on the eve of festive season.

“₹ 2.98 per litre hike in diesel price, 20-25 per cent increase in output of fruits, vegetables, pulses and other food items along with improved factory output by 10-15 per cent, especially from small and medium manufacturing units (SMEs) resulted in improved cargo offerings for trucking industry and consequently boosted the truck rentals by 4-5 per cent during September,” according to a statement of IFTRT (Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training).

Truck rental on Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi round trip on a 15-tonne payload truck stood at ₹ 89,350 on October 1 when compared with the rate of ₹ 85,100 on September 2. Delhi-Bangalore-Delhi round-trip saw a rise of four per cent to ₹ 139,000 from ₹ 133,700 and Delhi-Chennai-Delhi trip rental was up five per cent to ₹ 140,200 from ₹ 133,500.

During September, factory output from consumer durables, cement, construction materials, paints, automobiles, fertilisers and general merchandise saw jump in movement from production centres to retail markets. However, import-export cargo was still under negative lane though improved activity seen in infrastructure projects.

Thus, with improvements across categories, fleet utilisation level went up after a phase which saw truckers facing over supply issues.

Meanwhile, medium and heavy commercial vehicle segment continued to witness slackening sales in September with double digit fall in heavy truck segment when compared with September 2015 which witnessed huge jump sales on account of pre-buying triggered by new regulatory norms.

IFTRT pointed out that there was some uncertainty related to the implementation of GST among the fleet operators. Also, pre-buying due to BS-IV introduction was also not witnessed during the September quarter.

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