THIRUCHIRAPALLI: The steep rise in the prices of steel, timber and other materials has badly affected the truck body building industry across the state, according to an industry body.
The industry, which provides direct employment to over one lakh people and indirect employment to five lakh people, had also been hit by irregular power cuts in recent months and variable commercial tax levies, Federation of Tamil Nadu Body Builders Associations Secretary S Thiyagarajan told reporters.
Tamil Nadu has over 250 body building units, which every month roll out around 2,500 trucks to be deployed in national highways across the country.
The Namakkal-Tiruchengode belt accounts for over 150 of the units. Namakkal district, a major trucks hub in the country, alone has about 110 units, including 12 large-sized building houses, he said.
Major units are capable of delivering 25-50 trucks a month and some of them possess the capability of building petroleum/oil tankers, meeting the stringent Chief Controller of Explosives norms.
Faced with the cost escalation, of late several Namakkal units were working as labour contractors with the requisite materials being supplied by the owners themselves.
The cost of the materials would come around Rs two lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh for a routine body built on the chassis of Coment and Taurus models. The units spend in the range of Rs 25,000 to Rs 40,000 for the labour.
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