Highway Jottings-12
Beating drivers is a thing of the past! Believe me!
We’ve made significant strides in improving the treatment of long-haul truck drivers, marking a great progress in our industry!
Time and again, I indulge in self-inquiry to determine whether India Today has bettered its rishta with long-haul truck drivers since my tryst with these weakest supply chain links began in 2010.
I will be branded economical with the truth if the response is negative. Actually, it has improved. It has been long since I noticed motormaliks belting their drivers for diesel theft or other shenanigans. Yes, such incidents have not happened since COVID-19, perhaps. However, it does not mean drivers stopped stealing!
Now, it has been regularised. How? Let me explain. We must understand long-haul truck drivers’ compensation packages to grasp this situation better. There is nothing called an appointment letter issued to truck drivers. If at all, it has no meaning because the numerical information etched in it is irrelevant to the cost of living.
It is a tricky situation. Truck makers claim that their vehicles give x km per litre mileage when they sell to potential buyers (motor maliks). They, in turn, do their permutations and combinations and “negotiate” with their drivers. This figure is below what OEMs proclaimed. Drivers reject such numbers outrightly and bring that figure down a few notches. Nonetheless, the gap between their agreement with motormaliks is in the drivers’ favour.
The less diesel they consume, the more savings or earnings they have. Earlier, drivers used to sell the fuel saved to buyers (there are many!) at a discount to the pump price. That is also why drivers adopt risky driving behaviours, such as driving in neutral gear downhill to save extra fuel.
Arre driver bhai, why sell to a third party? Sell it back to me at the market price or a tad below it — definitely above the price received from third parties. Such fleet owners’ pleas have a positive resonance from both sides. It is no longer a ticklish issue. Instead, through this reset, the stakeholders resolved the challenge. Good work. Moreover, it works smoothly. Drivers inform the accounts department of the quantity of fuel in the tank at the end of the trip, and the agreed sum is credited to the driver’s account.
Fuel is a big ticket item for fleet owners and an irritant from a sustainability perspective. Once this is sorted out, the incidence of mara-mari between these two key players evaporated; therefore, the “beating episode” became history.
There is another angle to this positive transformation.
Around 2013, a young GeNext fleet-owning transporter (who studied abroad and was therefore tech-savvy and more polished than his dad, a home-grown motor malik) revealed a significant change in his father’s driver handling approach. He bluntly said, “I stopped beating drivers.” This shift to a more modern, technology-based management approach is a reassuring sign of our industry’s evolution.
In another fleet-owning company in the Manesar belt a decade ago, a senior executive walking me through his parking yard-cum-office proudly pointed to an abandoned ramshackle dark low roof room with a few wooden beams to say: “This is our control room… where we used to ‘condition’ our wayward drivers!” He said it with a wink!
Today, most fleet-owning companies are managed by younger lots. Well-educated. They ‘manage’ drivers through technology. They monitor EVERYTHING minutely and share their ‘insights’ about their shenanigans with drivers. Drivers are made to understand that they cannot go scot-free. Jamana badal gaya. It’s not that drivers abandoned their cheat tools. Such incidences have come down.
Fleet owners are fully aware that drivers have several job options. They are not worried about job security. If not motor malik A, there are motor malik B, C or Z. The worrylines on the forehead of fleet owners are permanently etched. The constant talk is: How can we retain the existing drivers? How do you earn their loyalty and stickiness? Not an easy task. Rome was not built in a single day. Also, the trust and faith of drivers in their owners are important.
Belting drivers to discipline them is not an option at all. It vanished for good.
It is truly a huge achievement! Mera Bharat badal raha hai!
In the next instalment, we will discuss the incidence of highway harassment. Has it come down or risen?
Until then, ciao!
