This is the second time in a week that truck drivers have created a scene on National Highway 40. The first incident happened on February 1 when irate truck drivers took the law in their own hands and released the selves from the onus of passing through the controversial weighbridge at Umling. The second incident happened on Feb 7 when truckers created chaos and blocked all traffic and even attempted to assault cops on duty. Unwitting passengers were stuck for several hours as truck drivers sought the release of their colleagues arrested for an earlier fracas on the same highway. Needless to say the weighbridge at Umling and the other related departments attached there for clearance of coal trucks, namely taxation, transport and the mining department have, instead of being facilitators, turned instead into dens of sleaze. Moreover, why should there be only a single weighbridge to clear thousands of trucks?
National Highway 40 is under construction and there is as yet no lay bye for trucks to halt for their logistical needs. To clear their papers they are no parked on one side of the highway thereby blocking the road completely for several kilometres. One weighbridge could have been located on the Shillong bypass for trucks coming from Jaintia Hills. Those coming from West Khasi Hills and East Khasi Hills could get their weights checked at Umling. It is unbelievable that Government officials and politicians passing along this highway every day have never been concerned about this build-up. The anarchy by truck drivers was waiting to happen. After all truck drivers too have their human needs. They cannot be treated like sub-humans who are made to wait on the road for over 24 hours in the cold and dust, hungry and angry and uncertain of when they will reach their destinations and pressured by their owners.
The coal trade has extracted a heavy price and reached a point of criminality that can no longer be ignored. The Government cannot take this lying down. Nor commuters continue to remain mute spectators.
