BENGALURU: Till July 1, at least 2,000 trucks would pass through the Attibele checkpost every day. The vehicles would come from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Post the GST rollout, eateries, bakeries, tea stalls and breakfast joints along NH-7 wear a deserted look. Reason: There has been a decrease in the number of trucks crossing the border as consignments haven’t been released by manufacturers, yet. Now only 800-900 trucks pass through daily.
Till manufacturers figure out the details of the new tax regime, trucks have been put on standby. The Attibele checkpost is an integrated one -- the RTO, the Forest Department and the erstwhile Commercial Tax checkposts are in one place. Truck drivers would generally stop by for a meal or a snack as they got their consignments checked and forms sealed at the checkpost. Now, with hardly any customers, the eateries are not buying new stocks and are sending off their workers home, at least for this month.
Nasir Ahmed, senior inspector of motor vehicles at Attibele checkpost, has seen the place for over an year. “Now there is a lull movement of goods as consignments haven’t been coming.”
Truck driver Shivaji Bhaskar from Karale, Maharashtra, who has been waiting along NH-27, a few yards away from the Attibele checkpost also voiced similar opining. “I have been here since June 26. I had to deliver consignments to Hosur from Jharkhand. Now, since the GST rollout, I haven’t received the consignment that I was supposed to ship to Goa,” he said. Shivaji’s truck is followed by a long line of trucks.
Trucker Deepak Kumar is transporting chocolate consignments for AVG Logistics. “We were already on the road when GST was rolled out and all consignments that were supposed to be transported post July 1 have been stalled for now. Our clients are figuring out the new way of paying tax, we presume.” His fellow trucker Satish Kumar agrees.
Chakravarthi G Naidu runs Dharini Food Court on NH-27 with seven employees. “I have sent away four of them. They made breakfast and chat. I used to makes sales to the tune of `7,000 every day. Now, with great difficulty, eatables worth `2,000 are sold,” he said. Since it has only been four days since GST rollout, he is hoping things will brighten up.
Attibele checkpost needs to be repurposed
The erstwhile Commercial Tax Attibele checkpost is a spacious three-storeyed building located on a humongous campus that houses the checkposts of the Forest Department and the Regional Transport Office. It is off the highway and is designed in such a way that it does not cause any hindrance to vehicular movement. But only its ground floor is in use. Or rather was. The other two floors were used as store rooms to stack commercial tax documents.
Commercial Tax Officer (CTO) Veerabhadrappa Y A says July 15 will be the staff’s last day at the checkpost. “We are making an inventory of the furniture here. CTOs are posted on rotation every month. There are four other people to assist. Now we will be assigned other duties,” he said.
Nasir Ahmed told Express that the government should consider ways to monetise this space. “There is a godown for commercial tax department here and also an unfinished canteen (pointing to a concrete structure) that the state wanted to construct for truckers. Due to some dispute between the contractor and the state government, it was abandoned.”
The sprawling checkpost will definitely be a waste of government land if not remodelled for something purposeful now that collection of commercial tax is no longer on the agenda. (With inputs from Vincent
D’ Souza in Mysuru, M Raghuram in Mangaluru, H Rajan Samuel in Belagavi, Ramakrishna Badseshi in Kalaburagi, Shreepad Ayachit in Koppal and Arunkumar Huralimath in Karwar)