"Stranded and Starving for Days": Truckers Cry for Help in Barak Valley

“We’ve been stranded here for days, along with thousands of other trucks and their drivers. We’re not asking for luxuries, just necessities like food and drinking water.”

This desperate cry echoes through the air of Barak Valley, where over a thousand truck drivers and their assistants remain trapped, unmoving, hungry, and hopeless, on the remote border between Assam and Meghalaya. For more than a week now, this forgotten stretch of national highway has turned into a landscape of desperation.

Each day adds to the misery of the stranded, left without food, water, or sanitation, and with no one to listen to their desperate pleas.

Crisis on National Highway

For the past week, the national highways leading to Assam’s Barak Valley and its critical gateway through Meghalaya have become an open-air prison for over a thousand truck drivers and their assistants. Trapped without movement and cut off from essential supplies, these workers are bearing the brunt of infrastructural neglect and administrative rigidity.

Truck drivers and handymen, stranded for days with little more than their rations, are now facing starvation. With money running out and no food or drinking water available in these remote border areas of Ratachera, Malidahar, and Digar Khal, many have been forced to survive completely without food.

“We’ve been stranded here for days, along with thousands of other trucks. We’re not asking for luxuries - just necessities like rice and drinking water. There’s nothing to eat. At night, we’re scared to sleep because thieves come and steal our mobile phones, diesel, and even tyres. There are no toilets or water nearby; we have to walk far just for basic sanitation,” said a helpless truck driver.

No Way In, No Way Out

The crisis erupted following two major infrastructural setbacks. First, the ongoing repair of the Gammon Bridge in Cachar severely limited access to Silchar and beyond. Then the collapse of the newly repaired bridge over the Harang Bridge at Bhangarpar cut off heavy vehicular access to the Barak Valley and, by extension, the northeastern states of Mizoram, Manipur, and Tripura.

In response, the Cachar district administration rerouted only smaller vehicles and trucks weighing less than 10 tonnes. However, the bulk of India's freight transport, especially essential commodities like cement, rice, edible oils, and industrial supplies, moves in heavy-duty trucks that now lie idle along the narrow roads of Meghalaya’s border regions.

Threats in the Dead of Night

Adding to their distress is the rising fear of theft. Several drivers have alleged that during the night, miscreants take advantage of the darkness to steal truck batteries and mobile phones. With no security deployment in these areas and limited local police patrolling, the vulnerable drivers have become soft targets for petty criminals.
The crisis is not just humanitarian; it's economic. Every day a truck remains idle translates to losses - fuel waste, spoilage of perishable goods, missed delivery deadlines, and mounting demurrage charges. Transporters, small business owners, and suppliers in Tripura, Mizoram, and Manipur are already reporting delayed stocks and a loss in revenue.

Call for Help

In the absence of swift government intervention, the truckers have made an emotional appeal to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. They have requested an emergency distribution of food, water, and basic medical kits at the stranded zones.

“Our trucks are carrying food supplies, yet we have no food. We started from Guwahati and were headed to Agartala, but we’ve received no help from any administrative authority so far. No one seems to care how we’re surviving here. We appeal to the Assam Chief Minister to please provide us with at least some basic facilities so we can survive this ordeal," appealed the truck drivers.

The bridges may have collapsed, but what must not fall apart is the government's moral responsibility to protect those caught in the middle.

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