New Maharashtra govt norms to choke supplies, create chaos: Transport body

Main pain point is rule on RT-PCR test for cargo carriers from outside the state

All-India Motor Transport Congress, the apex body of transporters, has said that the Maharashtra Government’s latest guidelines will hamper the supply of goods into the state in a big way. The guidelines makes it mandatory for cargo carriers originating from outside the state to carry a negative RT-PCR test report which will have to be issued up to a maximum of 48 hours before the time of entry into the state and which will be valid for seven days. They alleged guidelines are ill-conceived and therefore must be revisited and rectified.

The provisions in the guidelines are “impractical and it is difficult to get the RT-PCR Test done for each and every driver.”  It will cut Maharashtra from the rest of the country as it throttles supplies of essential and non-essentials into the state.  

RT-PCR Test reports take 48 hours in other states. A vehicle carrying cargo from, say, Delhi takes 72 hours to reach Maharashtra. Similarly all South-India bound commercial vehicles coming from Rajasthan or Gujarat have to pass through Maharashtra only. “How they will get the RT-PCR test done enroute?” asks the transport body.

It is also not possible for the drivers to do Covid test en route to their destination as they will have to abandon the vehicle on the highway without any security of material and go inside the city, get the test done, wait for the report for 48 hours, then enter into the State of Maharashtra. The 48 hours test norm is nowhere implemented anywhere in the country, said the transporters’ body.  

The whole process of getting the tests done and then enter the state will unleash chaos leading to supplies of essentials including FMCG products, medicines, critical medical equipments and oxygen tankers for hospitals, oxygen concentrators, cylinders, export-import cargo etc, to a standstill.

“The drivers are not so capable to search and get the tests done. Expecting such compliances by the drivers who are by and large illiterate is next to impossible. Waiting at borders without food, water and security is yet another challenge,” AIMTC said in a statement.

According to AIMTC close to 65 per cent of trucks are already standing idle due to lack of demand and reverse migration among the drivers, cleaners and helpers segment who have a lurking fear for their lives. In order to ensure seamless supplies of essentials transport firms are somehow managing they are to keep them motivated with incentives and social security measures.

“Asking our drivers to get the RT-PCR done again and again and the harassment faced en route on this account will further discourage and de-motivate them and make them run away abandoning their vehicles,”  said AIMTC.

The transport body has demanded creation of a rapid antigen facility at border check posts free of cost, provision of adequate facility for food and water for drivers at the borders, and requested that drivers be given hospitable treatment by the officials.