Multi-Disciplinary Reading – Book Reviews

Truck de India. Rajat Ubhaykar, 2019 – The book reads like a travel journal of the author as he criss-crosses the length and breadth of the country hitching rides on trucks from Mumbai to Srinagar and then on towards the north-east and then South. You meet colorful characters, from drivers, their helpers, people who build bodies for trucks and other hitchhikers that the truckers pick up en route. You learn about various things like militarisation of sikhs, consuming bhukki (opium), the families and communities of the drivers and helpers, the ustads of sirhind that build truck bodies, the gujjars and bakarwals that migrate in summer, of insurgency in the north-east, why salem is the sabudana capital of India and so on.

My notes –

• Bhiwandi was known for power looms and communal riots before the e-com revolution. Today its the warehouse of Mumbai due to it being just outside Mumbai’s octroi zone (less taxes). Its paddy fields are today hi-tech fulfilment centres (refer to the book ‘Arriving today’ to understand how hi-tech)

• Truck drivers pay Rs.400 to Mumbai traffic police to ply the roads before 9pm. Drivers who wait past 9PM get to pocket the Rs.400

• Mumbai-Delhi highway carries 40% of India’s traffic and connects key economic centres of Surat, Ahmedabad and Jaipur

• Vegetable trucks cover Delhi-Mumbai within a day and are the fastest – drivers dont even take a break to eat at a dhaba

• Only in 19th century (1833) child labour was prohibited in England (chronicled in Oliver Twist). In India, the medieval and modern are in an endless tussle as child labour is very common on our highways (most dhabas, shops employ them)

• Trucking industry is highly fragmented. The consignor wants to send goods while the trucker provides the services but in between you have two brokers – the booking agent on supply side (interfaces with consignor) and the commission agent on demand side (interfaces with truckers) – huge information asymmetry

• 3/4th of total freight transport is dominated by truckers who own less than 5 trucks. > 20 truck owners constitute only 10% of transport (work with big corps on contract basis and have bargaining power and dont have to rely on intermediaries)

• Commission agent charges the trucker 600-1000Rs. for arranging a load – 600 for 16ton truck and 800 for 21ton truck (freight rate 1750/ton) – ~2% which trickles down to end-customer. Freight rates vary based on demand – low on rainy days and high during festivals like Diwali.

• Booking agents indulge in cartelisation and avoid each other’s territories and increase rates in co-ordination when fuel prices go up (AIMTC was fined by CCI)

• Freight charges paid to truck drivers are not the same as negotiated between consignor and booking agent. Booking agent and commission agent collude and pocket the difference. On top of this commission agent never pays in full making sure trucker comes back to him for his next trip (Ola type app here can reduce info asymmetry and benefit truckers and end-customers)

• Morality is luxury when one struggles to meet basic needs. Its a construct created by the powerful to hold the powerless in check

• Truck drivers are divided along lines of ownership, territory, caste, religion and language and no organisation has been able to bring all of them together – this makes them powerless but also at the same time invincible – even if few of them go bankrupt, others take their place and fragmentation remains. Many bosses, many workers – where bosses are not any better off than workers in this ecosystem

• Punjabis venture all over the country while other community drivers stick to nearest 2 or 3 states or ply fixed routes

• Average truck drivers covers 20 kms in an hour on long distance trips (any savings from fuel conserved is pocketed by driver hence)

• Never ignore a honking truck driver – he is likely driving an overloaded truck which reduces braking efficiency by 40%

• Overloading is illegal as per Supreme court ruling from 2005 but penalty is progressive in the way its implemented – easily overcome with bribes lower than penalties. RTO officials, transporters and consignors – all get benefitted (At the expense of safety of drivers and public and wearing of roads). A peon at an RTO in AP made Rs.100 Cr from passing files and didn’t want promotion as his peon job was more lucrative

• Overloading benefits transporters since they are paid Rs per km per tonne – so natural leverage exists in overloading truck. 21ton truck normal load earns Rs.25,000 when loaded as per norms – costs Rs.16000 in diesel, bribes, wages and tolls earnings profit of 9000. When overloaded to twice the norm – can earn Rs50,000, with input costs around Rs.30k leading to more than double profits of Rs.20000 (there’s hidden cost to reduction of life of truck and parts)

• Rajasthan’s main exports are mineral and marble – highly dense leading to overloading

• New trucks are more prone to overloading since there’s no maintenance cost in first two years and also loan repayments loom – overloading reduces once loan payments are gone

• 10% overloading can reduce life of roads by 35%

• Most trucks are sold without a body from Tata Motors or Ashok Leyland and a body is built at places like Sirhind to spec (incl. the artwork), taking almost a month to mount on a chassis. Punjabi truckers might spend a lakh on decor while Kashmiris might spend even 2 lakhs (the sal wood is durable and last 20-25 yrs)

• NH39 is the lifeline of Nagaland and Manipur connecting Moreh in the plains to Dimapur on the Indo-Myanmar border, also India’ most unsafe highway (lot of East Asian good are smuggled through this porous border)

• Toll is collected by Naga, Kuki and Meitei revels for protection and the region is in perpetual conflict between the tribes for ideology and revenues

• There’s strong Korean influence in Manipur – prominently visible on tv and newspapers with K-pop and k-serials

• In Kerala you don’t have to worry about police or thieves – if you enter a no-entry by mistake, they will point you to the alternate route.

• GST has reduced wait times at the borders and also cut down bribes paid there by half

• Between Vijayawada to Guwahati, a trucker spends on avg. Rs.5000 in bribes, with pocket getting lighter from Icchapuram, Khurda, Cuttack, Bhadrak and Balasore with the worst to come in Bengal (trucker compares to cops to ULFA)

• Truck driving was a skilled job, like crane or fork-lift operator until power-steering came in

• U/S 190 (2) of Motor Vehicles Act is deliberates worded to be ambiguous for bribe-taking. Most cops just say the word “Mechanical” to demand bribes

• Different towns in TN has established competence and dominance in niche industries – Salem over sabudana, Dindugal over locks, Namakkal over rugged art of fashioning trucks out of metal and wood, Tiruchengode trucks with borewell rigs

• On A/C being manadatory in truck cabins – even if a/c is installed, owners will never let drivers use it and even if they do, the drivers will never do, to save fuel and pocket the cash

• Trucking industry is lot more formalised in south india than north, with VRL, Transport Corp. of India owning very large fleets of container trucks (these are never bothered by cops). Container trucks have a single driver without cleaner to save costs

• Most trucks are registered in Nagaland (NL plates) to save on tax

• Most modern trucks have GPS devices for fleet management, FASTag for automatic payments and drivers get a ATM card for emergencies. After GST, Delhi to Guwahati, 2 full days are saved for truckers

This was a book with a heart, in that the author gave up his educated, upper-class upbringing to discover the generosity, desperation, hospitality, obstinacy and hope of India through its truckers. Am not sure what gets into people’s heads to do something like this but it is this creative and adventurous spirit that makes life interesting and I totally enjoyed the book and its people while also learning a thing or two about trucking industry. 9/10