From 2025, Truck Drivers Must Have Air Conditioning Cabins: Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: From 2025, all truck cabins are be required to have air conditioning, giving drivers who frequently spend 11–12 hours in their stuffy confines much-needed relief. Driver weariness and accidents are frequently linked to difficult working circumstances and long journeys.

While premium trucks made by international manufacturers like Volvo and Scania already have air-conditioned cabins, most Indian players have not advanced despite a long-running debate on the subject.

Nitin Gadkari, the Union’s minister of road transport, revealed on Monday that he had approved a proposal to make air conditioning mandatory, with officials claiming that the industry needed a transitional time of 18 months to modernise.

“In our country, some drivers are behind wheels for 12 or 14 hours whereas in other countries, there is a restriction on the number of hours for bus and truck drivers to be on duty. Our drivers operate vehicles in temperatures of 43 to 47 degree and we must imagine the condition of drivers. I was keen to introduce the AC cabin after I became minister. But some people opposed it saying the cost will go up. Today (Monday), I have signed the file that all truck cabins will be AC cabins,” the minister said at an event organised by an automobile company. The road transport ministry had first proposed the move in 2016.

“The industry had demanded that the provision should be optional. Some of them had even claimed that the drivers may feel sleepy in AC cabins. We always had the same notion about bus drivers and the drivers’ cabins were non-AC for years. But the introduction of Volvo buses ended that perception and now all luxury buses have AC cabins for drivers as well,” said a ministry official.

One estimate places the extra cost for installing AC cabins in trucks in the region of Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 per vehicle.

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