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THE PROSPECTS OF INDIA
Page 106
Page 107
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AS A MARKET
Statistics of This Great Country's Rising Imports of Commercial Chassis and Vehicles. How the Road Transport of India is Being Mechanised
Two or three years before the war, no one in India would have believed that the motor orry would become so serious a ival of the bullock-cart as it has. 3ullock-cart owners and carters felt tssured that the lorry could not ompete with the cart owing to high !est of maintenance.
To-day, there are 1,500 motor orries on the road in Calcutta, and :heir number is increasing by 300 wery year. In Bombay, there are Mout 1,200 of them at work, and he rate of increase is about 150 wery year. At the outbreak of the war 76 motor lorries constituted India's equipment in motor vehicles for the transport of goods. In the financial year 1929-30 India im ported 15,305 motorbuses, vans and lorries, as compared with 2,162 in 1924-25.
The opening of the roads in Calcutta to motorbuses about four years ago marked a •new era for the motor lorry as well, and now the lorry is following the bus everywhere in India. Bombay is the province where, judging by the imports, the largest numbers of motorbuses, vans and lorries are being bought for distribution in other parts of India. In 1928-29 Bombay dealt with 4,254 of these vehicles out of the total of 12,790 imported. Madras came next with 2,477, and then Bengal with 2,350, Sind with 2,015, and Burma with 1,691.
Increasing Imports.
The imports of chassis have been increasing by leaps and bounds. In 1929-3010,340 chassis were imported, as compared with 10,838 in the preceding year, 7,412 in 1927-28, 5,345 in 1926-27, and 4,214 in 192526. The number of buses with bodies imported in 1929-30 was 4,965, as compared with 1,952 in 1928-29, 1.270 in 1927-28, 998 in 1926-27 and 626 in 1925-26.
E44 How the imports have been increasing may be gathered from the fact that in 1924-25 the total imports of motorbuses, vans and lorries were 2,162, in 1925-26 4,840, in 192627 6,343, in 1927-28 8,682, in 1928-29 12,790, and in 1929-30 15,305.
In the current official year the imports of the first three months show 424 motor vehicles with bodies and 1,821 chassis, giving a total of 2,245 motorbuses, vans and lorries, as compared with 4,726 in April-June 1929-30 and 3,088 in 1928-29. The United States holds the leading position among the foreign countries supplying these . vehicles and chassis. In 1928-29 America's• supplies of chassis were 5,140, as compared with 418 from the United Kingdom; in 1927-28 they were 3,317, as compared with 345, and in the• preceding year 1,846 as compared with 279.
The United States supplied 669 buses with bodies in 1928-29, as compared with 55 from
the United Kingdom. Imports of chassis from the United Kingdom are steadily increasing, but the number of buses with bodies shows marked fluctuations. In 1928-29 Italy's supplies to India of buses with bodies exceeded those of the United Kingdom by two vehicles. The total Indian imports, credited to the United Kingdom, of motorbuses, vans and lorries were 399 in 1q2930, as compared with 4,700 from the United States. The American vehicles are nearly all lightweights. Whilst in the large cities, like Calcutta, motor lorries are employed for the transport of goods, in the rural areas the passenger-lorry—the type we have so often referred to as the "jungle bus "—is acting as the forerunner of the motorbus. In Bihar, for instance, there are 174 passengerlorry services in operation, and this type of vehicle is rapidly gaining favour in the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, and Madras. This accounts for the increasing imports of chassis.
In Calcutta and Bombay cities, where the comfortable motorbus
with a seating capacity (a over 24 has already appeared on the streets, the motor lorry is, on merits, gaining its battles against the bullock-cart as a carrier of goods. In Calcutta, the number of motor lorries registered by the police for the first time was in 1926 243, in 1927 275, and in 1928 355, so that there is justification for the alarm felt by bullockcart owners and drivers in the city at the approaching doom of the bullock-cart. For dock work this was once the only type used. There were, about four or five years ago, 12,000 Dullock-carts on the streets in Calcutta, and this number has remained more or less stationary, but artisans employed in making carts are complaining of dull times in their trade. In goods traffic between Calcutta and its suburbs and neighbouring villages the motor lorry has gained a decisive advantage over the bullock-cart. The same kind of thing is reported from Bombay, Madras and even Karachi.
The motor lorry would have made more rapid strides in popularity than it already has in cities like Calcutta if manufacturers of motor lorries had considered the feasibility of placing a " baby " lorry on the market. A lorry, or truck, which might easily enter and leave the narrow lanes, where large numbers of the merchants' warehouses are situated, is what is wanted.
Another Influence at Work.
What is hastening the exit of the bullock and buffalo-carts from the cities is the realization by Indian
merchants that the motor lorry has also come as the rescuer of the patient bullocks and buffaloes. The campaign of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Calcutta has made the Indian merchant suddenly realize that humane considerations dictate the employment of the motor lorry, so far as possible, instead of the bullock or buffalo-cart. Many old British servants of the country would hardly credit this statement, yet the past few years have actually revealed the presence of this tendency.
The problem of extending the radius of operation of the motor lorry in rural areas is dependent upon the provision of good roads, and as the demand for motorbuses is insistent in villages there Is every prospect of a considerable extension of serviceable roads. India, thanks to the British, already has very fine trunk roads, and even the intervillage roads of the interior are being improved so that small lorries and "jungle buses" are popular.