How many members you have in your association?
We have 3000 active members in Kolkata and all total 1, 00,000 members in west Bengal. This is the mother association. There are many franchisees of our association in district wise.
What is the transport business scenario in West Bengal?
Giant manufacturers are dispatching their goods through train and we are loosing business. Train is cheap so mostly they prefer train transportations. In Inter-state transportation train become our big competitor.
The second reason is fuel price. Because of that we are unable to recover the cost of deal. Most of the cases profit margin is too low.
Day by day we are losing the industrialist. Production capacity has decline 4times more then earlier. When I started my business there were 2000 trucks loading form Haldia Port and now the figure has reached to 500.
Tell us something about your association role?
Association was very active in some point of time. Now the scenario has changed. People don’t have business and shifting to other business. We are losing members and our strength. When there is a meeting hardly members come unless they get stacked with any issue. Every time political figure changes but no change in system. We are just fed up of complaining them. Years after years, we are listing false commitment. Because of all these reasons, members are also loosing trust on us.
Share something about your experience with this association?
Federation of West Bengal Truck Owner association was established in 1995. Since then I am the President of this association. We have the largest number of members in our association. Previously I even used to operate my business all over India but in last few years, I sold most of my fleets, now operating only in west Bengal.
What your idea about load matching services?
This is a good concept. In developed countries people do business through this way also. Here transporters and truck owners are not that much literate and people in this business mostly trust on brokers. If you can change this mindset and turn those for using this, then this idea will shine.