Himachal: Truckers say losing livelihoods as deadlock with Adani Group’s cement firm continues

Shimla, Feb 14 (PTI) Every morning my son, who owns and drives a truck, goes to Adani Group-owned cement plant in Solan district to participate in a strike and comes back home in the evening disheartened, says 60-year-old Champa.

Like Champa’s son, hundreds of other truck owners and drivers are sitting idle for the past two months after an Adnai Group-owned cement company shut its two plants at Barmana in Bilaspur district and Darlaghat in Solan district in Himachal Pradesh on December 14 last year following a dispute with truckers over freight rates.

Though Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu tried to intervene and called a meeting with the CEO of the company and the truck operators on Tuesday, nothing conclusive emerged.

“It has been two months and my son who owns and drives a truck is without work. Every day he goes to the Adani-owned cement plant, meets other truckers, participates in strikes and comes back disheartened,” said Champa, a resident of Gahda village in Darlaghat.

There are about 6,500 trucks attached to the two cement plants and the grounding of trucks had hit the livelihood of thousands of families.

“Truckers who have no other income and have to repay loans are the worst hit,” said Ram Lal, a truck owner.

Shutting down of cement plants has also hit mechanics, dhaba owners and other people associated with the business, he said.

Truck owner Bhaghi Rath said the truckers are losing Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 per day.

Earlier, in a letter to Chairman of Permanent Standing Committee, Himachal Pradesh, CEO of Cement Business, Adani Cement, Ajay Kapur had maintained that transportation market is completely controlled by the transport unions who decide the rates and deployment of trucks.

We were forced to close our operations after the transport unions adopted an unworkable position on the freight rate and distribution model, he had said.

A truck union president at Darlaghat Ram Krishan told PTI that hundreds of people had given their land for construction of the cement plant but were neither adequately compensated nor provided direct employment.

“They bought trucks as an avenue of indirect employment but shutting down of the cement plant has hit their livelihood hard,” he said.

“People completely dependent on trucks for their earnings are facing hardships and survival has become difficult,” Krishan said.

An Ultratech cement plant at Baga, in the vicinity of Adani Group's Darlaghat and Barmana cement plants, hiked the freight charges from Rs 10.58 to Rs 10.71 per tonne per kilometer (PTPK) last week and we are asking the same from the Adani company, he said.

Due to the closure of the twin plants, the state is incurring a loss of Rs 2 crore per day, said Industry minister Harshvardhan Chauhan on Tuesday, impling that in the past two months the loss to the state exchequer has mounted to Rs 120 crore.

Chief Minister Sukhu had called the CEO of Adani Group running the cement plant for talks along with the representative of the truck operators’ union on Tuesday, but no consensus was reached. The deadlock between the management of the cement plant and the truck unions remained.

The Adani Group offered freight rates of Rs 10 for six tonne single axle and Rs 9 for double axle, while the truck operator unions sought Rs 10.71 for single axle with five per cent rebate on multiple axles.

Meanwhile, a truckers’ union engaged with the Ultratech cement plant on Tuesday extended its support to the agitation of the truckers’ union of the twin Adani Group-owned cement plants. PTI BPL AQS AQS