When you read about overloading of vehicles, one get’s to wonder why and how this happens.
We have a department of Transport which certifies that a particular vehicle can carry a maximum load. This could vary from 1 ton to 25 tons depending on the type of commercial vehicle and am sure, they have very stringent parameters to arrive at, what load a vehicle can carry. Inevitably the operator of the commercial vehicle goes about loading more than the permitted level and you will find these vehicles going like laggards on the roads.
In the area where I am presently operating from I notice two types of cargo being transported regularly beating all the permitted loading limits. One is Sand, which is illegally transported from the river banks to the near by metropolis. These multi axle vehicles which are permitted to carry 16 tons only, will not carry less than 25-30 tons depending on the vehicle condition. Similarly we have movement of Iron ore from mines which are located some 250-400 kms to a nearby port from where they are exported. All the vehicles carry at least double the permitted tonnage, since the cargo is confined within the body of the vehicle due to its weight.
What is the wonder is, when a vehicle is considered to be designed to carry ‘x’ weight how is it effortlessly transporting ‘2x’ times cargo. Either the permitting parameters are in-correct or we truly have an indigenous way of reworking on the chassis of the vehicle to make them carry double the permitted load.
I am made to understand that the vehicle movement keeps happening with the help of a ‘Green card’ or ‘Passport’ system. All these vehicles make a monthly payment to the transport department unofficially and the system is so well oiled even state boundaries have no limitations. The fee is supposed to be around Rs.47000-00 per month and we have at least 1000 vehicles transporting the Iron ore everyday. Considering that the vehicle takes two days for every trip considering the loading and unloading process at the mine and the port, there are some 2000 such trucks operating. These vehicles are approximately paying a sum of Rs.9.5 crores a month or a whopping Rs.114 crores per annum shared by transport department officials in the areas where the vehicles are plying and probably the line moving upwards too. No doubt with an understanding that when ever there is some hue and cry there will be a token stoppage and levy of penalty. This I am talking about in one area and imagine the nation wide impact if you analyze the amount of vehicular movement near every port town/city.
If you talk to the transport department officials their answer would be we are understaffed, we do not have enough resources to stop this, blah, blah….. But intentions are certainly not strong as they get the monthly facilitation fee or for a sincere officer (hard to find) it could, simply be political pressure.
My question is, is it so difficult to verify and catch the culprits, if they are called one. I believe it is the will that is required. One could simply seek the records of the port and see which vehicle carries how much load or ask the sales tax /mining department about the billing/permit pattern to verify the invoice/delivery Note/permit (which ever is applicable) to see what is the quantity carried in a given vehicle since a bill/permit cannot be split into two vehicles. With the help of this information one could simply arrive at the tonnage a vehicle carried and department should empower itself to send a challan post the delivery also, like they send it for road offences. Now in case there is some fudging of records at the port to avoid detection, like splitting the load onto two vehicle numbers, one could depend on the Toll gate records to see how many trips a vehicle has actually made.
Next issue is the cost of transportation, a mine owner/ exporter is willing to pay only a fixed amount of freight from the mine to the port, considering his own costing. A transporter then is looking at making his business profitable and going about overloading.
Why is a vehicle carrying overload, is it simply greed or our taxation system is encouraging this. A deeper study on this is needed as the quarterly taxation is considered quite high and also the toll levy for the road use is on the higher side. A possible solution could be more vehicles on the road, which helps industry to benefit, offsets the revenue loss in reducing the quarterly tax to the state exchequer, more vehicles means more employment, as each commercial vehicle employs a minimum of three people. More vehicles on the road mean no reduction of revenue to the NHAI.
In spite of all this if there is still overloading going on then the guilty should be punished very strongly. We could have the toll gates being provided with weigh bridges and if any vehicle is seen carrying more weight, toll bridges should be empowered to levy penalty and offload the excess cargo (this is suggested due to the fact, roads are the worst affected due to overloading, the undulations we notice on the highways is more due to the overloaded vehicles parked on the road side). Since lot of staff is present at the toll gates this could be facilitated without much additional recurring cost.
Probably there is a case for re-visiting the norms for fixing the permitted load, since vehicles are able to carry double the permitted loads.
May god open the eyes of all concerned and ensure this overloading menace is stopped at the earliest.
