Almost 35 per cent of the truck traffic to South Karnataka has shifted to the Ro-Ro service

Krishna usually takes a day off to recover from a drinking binge, but today he is at work at 3 a.m. sharp — with a hangover though. “Why should I take the day off when all I have to do is report to work, and sleep for the rest of the day?” he asks, as he settles down in the driver’s seat of his Ashok Leyland truck. He revs up the engine, shifts to second gear, and drives 100 metres through a muddy road to the railway checkpoint.

Krishna’s life has changed over the last one month. And it has much to do with the Roll-On Roll-Off (Ro-Ro) trains, a Konkan Railway service that was recently extended to Suratkal near Mangalore. For the first time in his 20-year career, Krishna gets to sleep on duty and is paid for it too. He doesn’t worry too much about drinking on duty, though his wife, back home in Junagarh, Gujarat, does worry about it. But she is glad he doesn’t reach home bleary-eyed and dog-tired anymore.

Even at this unearthly hour, there is a long line of trucks ahead. When Krishna reaches the checkpoint, he is assigned a number: 22. That is a two-hour wait, and then a test of his agility. He will have to gingerly steer his truck past an 11-feet high gate. It is a bit like high jump: a brush against the bar and you are disqualified. “This ensures that the height of the loaded trucks on the train will not be more than the height of the tunnels along the ghats,” explains a security officer, whose job is to ensure that only the right-sized trucks move to the next level.

Truck number 21 doesn’t make it — it is an inch too high. The driver, exasperated, pleads to be allowed in. After all, he has been waiting for two days. “Don’t worry. Just deflate the tyres a little, and the height of the truck will come down. Not like you have to drive for the next few hours,” suggests Chandrakant Gala, partner, Manish Transport, the private agency that operates Ro-Ro trains to Mangalore. This is how Ro-Ro works — loaded trucks roll onto rail wagons at Kolad station, about 150 km south of Mumbai, and piggyback their way on trains. Once the trains reach their destination, the trucks roll off the wagons and proceed to their destinations.

Krishna’s truck makes the bar. He proceeds to a concrete ramp that leads to the loading point and rolls his truck onto the train. For the next 20 hours he plans to listen to music and catch up on sleep while the train clatters its way through the Konkan ghats to Mangalore — trucks, drivers, goods and all.

Konkan Railway launched Ro-Ro trains from Kolad to Goa in 1999. It was seen as a conscious effort to woo freight carriers off the roads and back onto the railway tracks. “Our idea was to help transporters use the same fleet of trucks for more trips that would lead to a faster turnaround and higher profits. This would also help conserve diesel, decongest highways and reduce pollution,” says B. Rajaram, MD, Konkan Railway.

Over the last two decades, freight carriers have steadily moved from rails to roads. And as the government developed highways and neglected railways, the import bill for oil soared — with more than 40 per cent of India’s export paying for importing petroleum products alone. “The railways made no attempt to tap into high-cost freight items and fast moving consumer goods. Even these items moved to the roads. It’s high time we got these back onto the rail tracks,” says a transport expert. This is exactly what Ro-Ro is doing. Tiles, moulded plastic items, detergents, iron pellets, fertilisers and food grains are transported on Ro-Ro trains.

The response to Ro-Ro was so overwhelming that Konkan Railway extended operations up to Mangalore. But the service was closed down on this route after it failed to attract enough traffic. Early this year, Konkan Railway decided to rope in a private company to revive the route. Mumbai-based Manish Transport won the bid, and paid Rs 6.4 crore to operate Ro-Ro for a year. Konkan Railway, however, still operates the Goa Ro-Ro, and earned Rs 7.5 crore from the service last year.

It has been two months since the Mangalore Ro-Ro began operating again. On any given day, there is a winding line of trucks outside Kolad station. The demand, as the waiting lists for wagons suggest, has run into hundreds, and order books are overflowing. Truckers are fighting to get a place on the next train, for obvious reasons — it is cheaper, faster and safer to use Ro-Ro. On road, a truck takes 72 hours to travel the 1,000 km from Mumbai to Mangalore; with Ro-Ro it is down to 18 hours. The Ro-Ro charges Rs 7,100 for a regular two-axle truck travelling between Kolad and Mangalore. If the same truck were to run on the highway, the diesel costs alone would be worth Rs 7,500. Everything factored in (See ‘Ro-Ro vs The Highway’), including charges for drivers and cleaners, and minimised chances of accidents, Ro-Ro entails a savings of close to 90 per cent. No wonder, truckers from Rajasthan and Gujarat are lining up too!

But truckers do face a tiny hiccup: sales tax officers. Karnataka doesn’t levy octroi charges and trucks on Ro-Ro bypass all sales tax collection points. But the government has now installed a sales tax checkpoint just outside Suratkal station. “The sales tax officials are unhappy since truckers don’t grease their palms anymore to get faster clearances on the highway. They harass the drivers who get off Ro-Ro,” says a Konkan Railway official. But this is hardly a deterrent for truckers.

Right now the demand for wagons far outdoes supply: a single Ro-Ro train can carry only 29 trucks at a time, and currently only one train runs to Goa and Mangalore everyday. From a macro perspective, the number of trains will not be enough. The initiative will gather steam only if the service is rolled out across the country.

Konkan Railway has been nudging Indian Railways to extend Ro-Ro across the country, but has got a lukewarm response. In this year’s Railway Budget, however, Union railways minister Lalu Prasad Yadav suggested that Indian Railways give Ro-Ro a serious thought. “The Railways has initiated the process to develop special wagons, which will enable more than one truck to be carried in each wagon to optimise utilisation of assets. The Railways will consider introducing this service once the wagon design is finalised,” he said.

Meanwhile, traffic is steadily shifting from highways to Ro-Ro. Almost 35 per cent of trucks going to South Karnataka have shifted to this service. Manish Transport expects that to become about 60 per cent by the year-end. It’s only a matter of time before petrol pumps, dhabas and repair shops along the way feel the heat. Entrepreneurial hotel owners and mechanics have already set up shops outside Kolad station. A liquor joint is being planned near the station. Krishna and gang are going to bring brisk business.