Truck rentals during January moved up by 2.5-3 per cent on trunk routes with strong cargo offerings from agri-products. There was a rise of 10-15 per cent on movement of food grain and cereals, coupled with improvement in cargo offerings by 8-10 per cent from the manufacturing sector.
April to December witnessed 10.8-17.8 per cent increase in truck rentals over the same period last year.
The Indian Foundation of Transport Research & Training said truck rentals during December (December 4-January 3) were in a correction mode and remained range-bound with +1 per cent on trunk routes in a historically weak winter month.
However, rentals displayed healthy upward movement by an increase of 2.5-3 per cent during January, as cargo offering across the economy from agricultural produce and the manufacturing sector remained buoyant, helping truckers make optimum use of their fleet.
S P Singh, senior fellow and coordinator, IFTRT, said the manufacturing sector during April-December continued to perform in a chequered manner and cargo offerings got only 5-6 per cent average growth from this sector.
However, the food grain, cereals and edible oils offered 10 per cent -11 per cent extra cargo all through last three quarters and the fresh fruit and vegetables during October-December 2011 displayed 20 per cent -25 per cent extra arrival in comparison to the previous quarter in the same fiscal. This led to higher fleet utilisation and increase in the truck rentals on the trunk routes by 10.8 per cent to 17.8 per cent during April - Dec 2011.
In addition to this, the fleet expansion went up with addition of new trucks by 247298 units in April-Dec 2011 despite increase in auto finance interest cost and steep increase in price of truck chasis during this period. In fact, the truck sales (5 ton-49 ton range) went up by 13.5% in this period in comparison to same period last year.
