The 5% tax that transporters are now charging is bound to lead to an overall increase in the basic cost of whatever they transport; truck drivers rue loss of income

It’s a few minutes shy of 11 p.m. when goods carriers rev to life laden with provisions meant for one or the other part of the country.

The days that follow are full of an enduring drive across several national highways. However, north Delhi’s Sanjay Gandhi Transport is uncharacteristically quiet on Monday evening.

Subhash Sharma, the manager of BRC Logistics here, is meticulously going over documentation to be handed over to the driver of a particular vehicle, assigned to transport the last of what was initially a significant consignment of footwear and other odds and ends left over from before the roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) over the weekend, to Bengaluru.

“Seems like this will be one of the last trips that our vehicles make before things are back to normal,” Mr. Sharma says, pointing to the widening distance between the ceiling of the modestly-lit warehouse where he is sitting and the crates.

“There has been no business since July 1, when the GST was rolled out. All warehouses in Delhi are full of goods purchased on June 29 and 30. These two dozen-or-so boxes are the final orders that have been given [by suppliers to be transported]. It’s difficult to guess when we’ll see such business again, given increased prices due to GST,” he says, alluding to the 5% tax that transporters are now charging for their services that is bound to lead to an overall increase in the basic cost of whatever they transport.

Stifling transport business

According to Mr. Sharma, GST provisions have stifled the transport business from both sides — goods carriers aren’t going out of Delhi due to demand constraints on the one hand and due to the inability and “lack of understanding” on the part of customers based outside Delhi in relation to new provisions such as GST figures and waybills on the other hand.

“This is certainly not what we understood from the Prime Minister’s announcement of ‘One Nation One Tax’. We, as an industry, are suffering and it has only been a few days since the [GST] roll-out,” complained Phulkaran Singh Atwal, the chairman of the All India Motor Transport Congress and president of the Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar Association.

“All old taxes are still being charged despite the GST roll-out. In fact, drivers are being harassed in the name of more taxes than before,” claimed Sanjay Samrat of the Delhi Taxi Tourist Transporters’ Association.

It’s 10.35 p.m. and 24-year-old Alim Khan, a resident of Nuh in Mewat who is on his maiden assignment from BRC Logistics, keeps asking his distant cousin and helper 22-year-old Shakir Khan whether the bilti or bills and other documentation are in place over and over as his modified ocher-orange Ashok Leyland 2516 XL laboriously lugs out of a muddy exit from Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar en route Jaipur.

Empty highways

Empty trucks like his are parked all around because, he says, “there isn’t anything” to ferry since the past three days after the GST roll-out. The road leading out towards Karnal bypass adjacent to Samaypur Badli is clearer than usual, says Alim.

“There are fewer vehicles on the road today [on Monday night]. There’s just no business. Usually, there are at least a dozen vehicles after us at this petrol pump but today we’re the third in line,” says Shakir, as we stop at a petrol pump near Haiderpur village on the outskirts of Rohini.

Alim makes a quick call to a friend he saw leaving while he was readying his vehicle, for directions.

“Is there a lot of traffic? And is the checking like usual or are they asking too many questions,” he asks apprehensively. “Forget traffic, even the usual check points on the route aren’t there tonight,” Alim announces after the call.

It’s 11.52 p.m. and Alim smiles at his friend’s impeccable inputs on both the traffic and missing check points as the vehicle breezes through the dreaded bottleneck at Dhaula Kuan.

“I’ve been driving for three years and I’ve been through Dhaula Kuan almost every night since I turned 13 as a helper on other vehicles. This is the clearest I’ve ever seen this stretch,” says Alim.

“Sadly, it is at the cost of livelihoods,” Shakir retorts.

At 12.03 a.m., commercial traffic can be counted on one’s fingers as neon-lit hotel signs whizz past on the left at Mahipalpur.

“There’s congestion on the opposite side as you can see, but it’s hardly the jam that we’re used to seeing,” says Alim. His friend’s input about missing check points and thin traffic continues to surprise us for over 200 km — crossing tolls at Kherki Daula, Daulatpura, Shahjahanpur and Manoharpur — till we enter the Pink City nine hours later.

Except for a “small one” compared to previous trips at Shahjahanpur – where Alim’s papers are quickly checked before he is waved away – most check points, he claimed, weren’t in place.

Bumpy future

A string of side-by-side petrol pumps a few kilometres away from Bilaspur Chowk are out of fuel. Supply has been hit due to the relatively low traffic since the GST roll-out, claims a pump official.

The vehicle has to call it a day, prolonging its pit stop till the fuel pump is refuelled two hours later, with Jaipur still over 200 km away.

At a nameless dhaba across the road, a little over half-a-dozen men sit huddled around a television playing a Vinod Khanna-starrer from the 1990s as a handful more catch up on sleep on charpoys. Utter the word GST and the attention shifts.

“If business continues to suffer like it has since Saturday, I’ll have to sell my organs to feed my children,” complains Ram Niwas, a driver. “There is just no work these days. Barring completing previous orders, there is not even a single reason to be on the road any more,” he adds.

Shakir spots an acquaintance from his village a few hundred metres from Kherki Daula toll and Alim pulls over for another quick chat with fellow truckers at a small tea shop; a dozen other vehicles are present. GST is the topic of discussion.

“We have no problem with the government wanting to unite all taxes in one but when it affects the flame of my stove, I can’t just stand by and watch. I’ve only managed to persuade my employer to let me make one trip in the last four days. The less I travel, the less I make,” complained Ranjan Shinde, a trucker from Thane headed to Jaipur.

Tanveer Jagga, who is ferrying quilts from Jaipur to Delhi, says, “Even our employers haven’t been able to understand GST despite an army of chartered accountants, forget uneducated people like us. I just hope the government and the suppliers sort it out soon. We have more mouths to feed than them.”