Truck operators have urged the Maharashtra government to make the Special Task Force ordered for the Samruddhi Mahamarg a permanent unit after reported robberies targeting long-haul drivers on the expressway.
The transport industry has also sought a dedicated 24-hour emergency and crime helpline, a mobile application and a WhatsApp SOS service that can transmit a driver’s live GPS location to the nearest police station. The demands follow Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s recent direction to establish an STF to act against organised gangs targeting freight vehicles.
Transporters have called for expanded CCTV coverage, crime-hotspot mapping and Quick Response Teams at vulnerable sections of the corridor. They said these measures would help drivers obtain immediate assistance during an incident and improve police response along the route.
Bal Malkit Singh of the All India Motor Transport Congress said gangs allegedly use two cars to overtake and block trucks before several armed men confront drivers and take cash, mobile phones, batteries, spare tyres and diesel. “Truck drivers have effectively been turned into ATMs,” Singh said, according to the report.
Transport representatives also alleged that drivers who seek help after an incident can face delays in registering complaints. Singh said some patrol vans penalise stranded drivers for no-parking violations and direct them to distant police stations to file first information reports. These claims were made by transport industry representatives and were not accompanied in the report by a police response.
Interstate fleet operators said many incidents may go unreported because drivers fear bureaucratic delays and operational losses. They have asked the STF to investigate and dismantle what they describe as organised syndicates operating along the expressway, rather than treating individual robberies as isolated incidents.
In a separate transport-related development, more than 50,000 commercial vehicles stranded in Maharashtra because of mismatches between Registration Certificate records and Aadhaar profiles are expected to resume operations. The automated Vahan portal had blocked processing after earlier manual exemptions were withdrawn.
Transport authorities have now allowed affected operators to approach their respective regional transport offices to correct documentation discrepancies. The corrections will be validated against Aadhaar records, providing a route for the vehicles to clear the registration-related bottleneck. The government’s next steps on making the STF permanent and establishing the proposed emergency systems were not specified in the report.
