Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said that the government wanted to make 80 per cent of India’s truck fleet run on CNG or LNG to reduce logistic costs of export.
The minister, speaking at Concluding event of Project Abhay by CRDT in IIT Delhi, said that transporting time had already been reduced considerably due to better roads.
Gadkari also said that India has a shortage of truck drivers and that training centres were being set up across the country to bridge the gap. “We have only 75 drivers for 100 trucks. There is a shortage of 22 lakh drivers,” he said.
He also attributed this shortage to the large number of accidents. “We do not have driver shifts in India unlike in Europe, which cause many accidents. We also need to upgrade technology. There were 1.80 lakh deaths in 5 lakh accidents, of which trucks contributed to 10,000 deaths,” said Gadkari.
He also said that trucks with Automatic emergency brake system have been added in trucks and buses for making roads safer.