Transport is a derived demand, not an end in itself and should endeavour towards the most efficient way to move freight and people. An efficient transportation system needs to be run within environmental and democratic parameters of rules and regulations that regulate the activity. Road transport has to complement and strengthen other modes of transport – and in the process inter modal confusion and conflict needs to be avoided, as it results in huge economic losses.
Road Transportation is an important means for transporting goods. In India despite a vast network of railways more than 70% of goods movement is by road. Though contributing substantially to the economy of the country, it is strange that this activity is still not recognized as an industry – and it remains mostly privatised, localised and unorganised, with most of it manipulated by big transporters, middlemen and their agents to the detriment of the majority smaller operators. The business is personalised like any other small, irregular and unorganised trade – carried out without obtaining any licence.
Not that I am suggesting that this activity should be licensed. But there exist no rules regarding eligibility for owning a truck – anyone and everyone with the money power to afford it, can own a truck. There are no effective rules or conditions for its parking and maintenance, nor for carrying specified goods. There are no rules for its employees, no rules for their homes and nature of their welfare, financial security, medical aid, compensation, or minimum wages.
In a democracy, people have a right to participate in professional and personal decisions that affect them directly and indirectly – and they should be given an opportunity and access to it also. While a certain selected lot owns the transportation sector, the actual operation is mainly dependent on people who man the trucks. These are the drivers and cleaners, mostly hailing from villages, who are more often than not illiterate, unaware and unemployed youth, who have little support, respect or avenues for survival. But with one advantage to their credit – they are all able-bodied, sturdy and adventurous.
Truck Drivers have an in-built fear of authority mainly because most of them carry fake licences or licences obtained through dubious means. They often carry fake documents for evading tax, violating permit conditions; indulge in carrying over-loads, extra passengers or illicit goods; and they are not averse to using intoxicants – in fact fortifying oneself with alcohol before taking to the wheel is often the thumb rule; which in turn, removes from them all qualms of conscience on the issue of violating various road rules and regulations.
A side of this driver/ cleaner lot is also observed to be their depressed state of mind and body, imbalanced from exposure to harsh climactic conditions, from unhygienic food, from unclean water and from irregular and long hours of duty. Because of bad treatment by their employers, by civic/ toll/ police/ transport officials, by broken down vehicles. And because of inadequate and irregular rest; with last but not the least reason being that separation from own family over prolonged periods of time.
As service providers to them, road-side ‘dhabas’ play a major role in their lives, since these places become their rendezvous points providing them facilities for toilet, bath, food, rest, at times finance, consultation, guidance, interaction, medicine; and also a pseudo family-like comfort; and a place for depositing, receiving or sending messages. Dhabas in turn have their own norms and culture depicting an environment where all religions and functions are celebrated without prejudice – becoming a place of infinite wisdom for and of the truckers, a place where they can forget all their worries.
The nature of their work exposes truck drivers and cleaners to diseases affecting the skin, lungs, eyes, their heart, also leading to hearing impairment and digestive disorders – as also depression. They have to however depend for treatment at their own expense, from unqualified doctors and quacks, resulting in further deteriorating health. Their career is then exposed to risks of life in accidents in which they are incarcerated – where too they have to contest cases at their own expense. And they are exposed to physical danger too at the hands of robbers, dacoits and truck-jackers, with not a few cases where criminals have done them to death with their bodies remaining untraced, or often going unrecognised for disposal as unclaimed. To sum up, the drivers and cleaners are also an apprehensive lot as their jobs are unsecured, temporary, un-respectful, without pension or provident fund, or other old-age benefits including insurance. Unsecured future breeds desperate individuals.
From this kind of a lot what kind of adherence to road rules and regulations can be expected!? The Traffic Police and other philanthropic bodies and NGOs have been holding health ‘melas’, counselling sessions, road safety awareness campaigns and free eye-testing camps for these truckers. During such eye-tests the majority of drivers are found driving their trucks with defective eyes. This, combined with their growing reliance on ‘spirits’ used as morale boosters for undertaking the arduous journeys ahead, turn them invariably into potential bombs – often with only devastation at the end of the tunnel.
In Delhi the movement of trucks relates mainly to wholesale markets of fruits and vegetables, food grains, fuel oil, iron and steel and other goods of the export market. Because of five National Highways converging into it, Delhi is also a thoroughfare for inter-state routes. Consequently, though trucks constitute less than five per cent of registered vehicular population in Delhi, their involvement is seen in almost 50% of the fatal accidents in a given year – on an average making them responsible for almost a thousand deaths on Delhi’s roads every year; their victims mainly being pedestrians and cyclists.
While trucks are a necessity for economic activity, they constitute a very major nuisance; by obstructing the free flow of traffic within the city by their erratic road behaviour, their sheer size and threatening bull-dozing power, and their polluting propensity through diesel emissions and use of pressure horns. In 2001, the Delhi Traffic Police launched 4.64 lakh prosecutions against truck drivers for various violations and offences.
The colossal adversarial data against them, and their increased involvement in fatal accidents puts truck drivers in the category of those with unstable state of mind, lack of knowledge of road rules, and no respect for human life or other road accident victims. It is necessary for the transport sector and committed NGOs to step in urgently to sensitise them to the requirements.
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03/05/2002: Maxwell Pereira, 60 Ashoka road, ND-1; 3718822, 3731765; email
(published in the Delhi Mid-Day on Wednesday the May 5, 2002)
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