LOGISTICS MONITOR
When I returned from the Persian Gulf forever in end-2009, there was no awareness about the Drivers Day in India. In the United States, they had the Driver Appreciation Week where large fleet owners and various stakeholders conducted an array of entertainment and games programs for long-haul truck drivers. Since then, it caught on in the land of Mahatma Gandhi too.
Why celebrate drivers? Good question. We all have needs: roti, kapada aur makaan (food, clothing and shelter). Remove drivers from your society and we may have to return to the cave ages. No exaggeration, but hard reality: Covid or not.
Of course, the pandemic has driven us to a situation where our dependence on online purchases for A to Z has boomed. Forget Covid. Even otherwise, we are living in an age of outsourcing. For instance, the cars you buy, the house you build, and the garments you desire are the results of collaborative logistics. Put it differently, no single person makes the shirt or salwar kameez you wear. Someone grows cotton. Someone turns that cotton into fabric. Someone colors it. Someone stitches. Someone buttons up. Someone labels. Someone packs. Well, that is not the end of the story. The product is ready at the factory or manufacturing site using cotton brought from cotton growers, fabric makers, button makers, tailors, and packers, etc.
We, the consumers don’t go to the factory to buy our requirements. We shop in the neighbourhood malls. How did the shirt or salwar kameez we buy reach the shelves in the bazaar? Did the makers bring them as headload? No, not at all. The same thing holds good for every single item: be it your car or tablets or your favourite beverage etc.
This is where drivers play a significant and pivotal role. Don’t they need recognition? Definitely. That’s where the Drivers Day concept crept in. We celebrate several such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Children’s Day. Why not Drivers’ Day?
Having said that, in India, the government claims there nine million trucks of various sizes ply on the roads. Over the years, roads have become better. Vehicles have gone hi-tech. But the drivers’ working and living conditions have worsened. Irrespective of the political party in power, highway corruption is rampant. Drivers by and large are unlettered and our Motor vehicle laws are not driver-friendly. Transportation is on the concurrent list and states have a bigger say in how transportation functions. Trucking is viewed as a milch cow by the governments. The money they collect but provide no facilities. Sickening, indeed.
Unlike in the matured economies, Indian drivers are self-taught, never trained, and certified by authorities in the strictest sense of the term. Through bribes, a driving licence can be acquired in India. Lack of road safety awareness coupled with zilch training has led to a situation where India tops the table of road accidents – a dubious distinction.
Due to the stigma attached to the truck driving profession, there is a 22 percent shortage in India. To realise the US$5trillion Indian economy, logistics is a key element. Transportation is a vital ingredient of logistics. Multimodal logistics – using the road, rail, and waterways – is being promoted but it will take time. All said and done, rail or water cannot survive without road transport support for first and last-mile delivery.
More driver training schools are blue-penciled across India. A handful exist, but no takers given the social stigma and health-related concerns such as HIV/AIDS, etc. among the driving community.
But truck driving demands no qualification. Fifth class education is sufficient. Easy entry and easy exit. It is high time, just not the government and transporters who should give adequate attention to drivers and improve their living and working conditions, but the entire society, because the world sustenance warrants a huge dollop of logistics.
Ignore them, at your peril. Aam janata feels the pinch only when transporters go on a long strike. Suddenly there is a shortage of everything and the price level shoots up and we begin to crib. This mindset has to change.
Since the breakout of the pandemic, even the government has not been fair to truck drivers, though they worked non-stop braving Covid ensuring you and I got our regular supply of dal, chawal, fruit, milk, medicine, etc. Truck drivers are not included in the category of Frontline workers. A sad reflection of the government at the highest level.
Drivers expect “respect”, not once a year circus or tamasha called “Drivers Day”. Yes, it calls for a sustained social campaign to usher in total transformation. No easy task. But worth trying given the Father of the Nation’s belief in the dignity of labor.
The main Image by andreas160578 from Pixabay has been used for illustrative purpose only
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