Himachal’s truck strikes run over; Adani to Cremica, all want out

Cremica is not the only company that faced trucker trouble in Himachal Pradesh. As many as 43 industrial units have shut operations in the last three years. The highest shutdowns were in Sirmaur’s Kala Amb area, where 35 businesses closed shop. Then two companies in Una, two in Baddi and Solan and one in Shimla and Kangra terminated operations in the state. Between 2015-2018, the total number of shutdowns was 118. “The freight rates in Himachal are very high compared to neighbouring states, and the truck unions here do not allow vehicles from other states to load goods,” said a senior executive director at Cremica. The firm shifted from Tahliwal in Himachal Pradesh to Rajpura in Punjab two years ago, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. For Himachal industries, the litany of woes runs over. On top of the truck cartels and intimidatory work culture, businesses say the state government also levies an Additional Goods Tax (AGT), apart from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) already mandated by the Centre. The unions are also short of containers, causing a delay in transportation. For all the talk of mediation, little has changed on the ground. The situation in Darlaghat, where one of the cement factories acquired by Adani Group used to operate, is tense. Hundreds of trucks are parked idly on narrow roads. On 10 January, transporters allegedly stopped the vehicle of Hoshyar Singh, an industrialist and Independent MLA from Dehra, for his anti-union remarks. Singh, who has units manufacturing precision engineering parts in the Una district, is reportedly thinking about shutting them down due to recurring losses made worse by high freight charges. The Adani cement fiasco has left the state government squirming. A high-ranking source in the Sukhu cabinet revealed that the Himachal government is facing a loss of more than Rs 1 crore daily due to the closure of Adani’s cement plants. Also Read Dredging Corporation signs agreement for waterways work in NE region Ceat looks to cash in opportunities for exports