Covid-19 Restrictions To Cause Rs 17,800 Crore Loss To Transporters In April Alone

With rise in Covid-19 cases and fresh restrictions imposed by various state governments, particularly in urban areas, the road transport sector is estimated to suffer $2.4 billion (Rs 17,800 crore) of revenue loss in April alone.

On an average, the Indian road transport sector carries goods worth $12 billion per month. Transporters fear that though impact is 15 to 20 per cent, there was a drop in load availability and that the overall supply chain was slowing down.

"The current wave is more aggressive and daily infection numbers are higher than ever. The impact is likely to spread to other states from just Maharashtra and Delhi. We feel there will be a minimum impact of 20 per cent on load carriage, which may take away a couple of billion dollars in revenue for the logistics sector for the month," said Transport Corporation of India chief executive Jasjit Sethi.

“The demand till 31 March was very healthy, but over the last ten days, there had been a drop in business of 15 to 20 per cent,” SP Singh, a senior fellow and coordinator at Indian Foundation for Transport Research & Training, told The Economic Times.

“Transport is a dependent business, it is not an independent business. Since truckers will be having lesser trips to run, business is expected to go down by 25 per cent,” he said.

“Some companies in Maharashtra are holding trucks for a day before loading goods onto them, as a precaution against infection in case the vehicle has been contaminated. Delays are also caused due to checks on state borders for RT-PCR tests for drivers, he said. This causes an artificial shortage of transport capacity in the market,” said Sachin Haritash, a director at Chetak Logistics.