As the second COVID wave hits the country, lockdown fears have caused truck fleet utilisation and rentals to plunge across routes. The Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT) data suggests that truck rentals have plunged across routes from April 1-15.

CNBC-TV8 spoke to Umesh Revankar, MD of Shriram Transport Finance, to take stock of the situation.

Revankar said that even though few states are posing some challenges with truck movement, bulk movement and essentials are not facing any problems.

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“So far bulk movement of cement and steel is still good. It has not slowed down. Essentials are also moving. Only non-essentials there could be less demand for the time being, but that it is not reflected in the movement of the trucks so far. There are some states where the challenges are a little high, but if you look at the all India scenario, I don’t think things are that bad. If we are able to manage this month well, I think next month onwards things should become much better,” he said.

He said that there could be a delay in payments from small truck operators but he does not expect defaults.

“Small truck operators, normally if they are not able to pay full EMI, they pay part EMI and may try to pay next month. So, I don’t really fear default. There could be some delay, there could be a lesser amount than the EMI, but next month he can recover. So as long as people can recover within a couple of months or a quarter, it is fine for us,” he said.

Watch the video for more.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Apr 19, 2021 11:45 AM IST