September has brought some relief to the trucking industry as freight rates on trunk routes saw an increase of 4-5 per cent on the back of strong cargo flow from agriculture and small and medium industry segments on the eve of the festival season.
The Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT), in a statement, said “₹2.98 per litre hike in diesel price, 20-25 per cent increase in output of fruits, vegetables, pulses and other food items along with improved factory output by 10-15 per cent, especially from small and medium manufacturing units (SMEs) resulted in improved cargo offerings for trucking industry and consequently boosted the truck rentals by 4-5 per cent during September.”
Rental on the Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi round-trip on a 15-tonne payload truck stood at ₹89,350 on October 1 when compared with ₹85,100 on September 2.
The Delhi-Bangalore-Delhi round-trip saw a rise of four per cent to ₹139,000 from ₹133,700 and the Delhi-Chennai-Delhi trip rental was up five per cent to ₹140,200 from ₹133,500.
During September, factory output from consumer durables, cement, construction materials, paints, automobiles, fertilisers and general merchandise saw jump in movement from production centres to retail markets. However, import-export cargo was still in the negative lane though improved activity was seen in infrastructure projects.
Thus, with improvements across categories, fleet utilisation level went up after a phase which saw truckers facing over supply issues.
IFTRT pointed out that there was some uncertainty over implementation of GST among fleet operators.