Truck Drivers Given Hologram Tickets As Rs 100 Equivalents At Toll Booths

New Delhi: Even as the highway toll fee is not being charged the trucking industry faces issues of a peculiar nature due to demonetisation.

"The trucking industry is losing around Rs 5,000 crores per day since the launch of the demonetisation scheme. Up to 35 lakh trucks are not plying on the roads as owners do not have the cash required to be disbursed for the trips," said Kultaran Singh Atwal, Chairman of All India Motor Transport Congress.

Atwal does not mince his words, he explains, "It is not enough for the highway tolls to be suspended. How will our drivers pay for their food at dhabas on the way - you'd be out of your mind to think plastic money would work there! And what about the daily wage labourers who are an integral part of the industry?"

On speaking to the drivers themselves, other problems surface. One of them shows us a Delhi Police challan of 600 rupees and claims he was charged 1000 rupees for it, without getting the change back. "The cops said they do not have the change to return the 400 rupees I was owed."

Another driver, Prakash Gujjar, shows us a hologram ticket which he was told is an equivalent of 100 rupees.

"I had to pay 2600 rupees at the MCD toll point at the Delhi-Haryana border in Badarpur. On giving them three thousand rupee notes, I was given these 4 red tickets as change. They told me they were out of cash and I could get my money back later by exchanging these coupons. If you ask me, I do not think that I will ever get my 400 rupees back by showing them these tickets in future," he said.

It is an odd arrangement and there is currently no clarity or confirmation on whether the MCD toll booth will indeed come good on their promise. Is it Indian jugaad at its best or something more sinister?

Kultaran Atwal, of the Motor Transport Congress, does not trust the so-called 100 rupee equivalents. "Who has authorised the MCD booths to issue these holograms as equal to a hundred rupees? Whose face is it on the holograms? How are we to assume that it is a legitimate practice? A fair probe must be instituted immediately into the matter."

The MCD is yet to respond to CNN-News18's queries on the matter.