“Give me drivers, I will order 10 trucks immediately,” says a fleet operator to an official from a truck manufacturing company. The acute shortage of drivers is crippling the trucking business with nearly 20 lakh vehicles idling across the country.

“Nobody wants to be a truck driver these days,” says S.P. Mohan, a major operator in Namakkal, the trucking hub of Tamil Nadu.

In the past, the problem was that of over-supply, with drivers waiting in queue for their turn. “Today, owners are waiting for drivers, forcing many of them to take the wheels,” says Mohan.

Spending months on the road, away from family, is a deterrent. “A driver can earn Rs 30,000 a month, but many are content with getting Rs 6,000 working in retail outlets or as security guards,” says Mohan. The emergence of small and light commercial vehicles is tempting drivers to turn owners themselves, according to Umesh Revankar, MD, Shriram Transport Finance. K. Nallathambi, President, State Lorry Owners’ Federation, Namakkal, says the recent Government order making it mandatory for truck drivers to have studied till Standard VIII has made the driver shortage problem acute.

All this is likely to impact truck sales, as vehicle owners shelve buying decisions. The manufacturers are worried. Says Rajiv Saharia, Ashok Leyland’s Executive Director for Marketing: “For every 100 vehicles, seven are sitting idle. Although one cannot quantify the correlation between fleet utilisation and sales, sales and operations will be impacted.” Ashok Leyland is doing its bit through its driver training institutes at Namakkal and Burari, outside Delhi. Six more centres are coming up.

“We are keen that drivers get their due respect,” says Saharia. “Along with our U-trucks, we give drivers a kit containing a leather bag, a blanket, a T-shirt and a flashlight to make them feel good.” More image-building efforts and better facilities on road are required to attract youngsters, says Shriram Transport’s Revankar.

>raja.simhan@thehindu.co.in

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