The dingy shops on the broken road off NH-6 at Bamundanga are stacked with old, worn-out tyres from floor to ceiling. A 100 sq ft shop at the corner of the service road of NH6 and the road leading to Bamundanga, had a visitor at noon. An empty pick-up truck parked itself in front of the shop to load some of these old tyres for "resoling".
Resoling or retreading of tyres is big business on NH-6 with 50 odd shops providing such service. With a heavy traffic load of commercial vehicles, the national highway and places like Bamundanga, Dankuni, Chamrail, Duttabagan, off the NH-6, are dotted with such units that deal in retreading or resoling of old tyres. The small shops at Bamundanga mostly act as agents. They take the tyres from their clients, mostly lorry or bus drivers, and send them off for retreading to the units that actually do the job. "About 10-12 tyres are resoled every day at these units. Mostly buses, trucks and other heavy commercial vehicles go for resoling of their old worn-out tyres since it's a far cheaper option than buying new tyres. The tyres of these vehicles wear off early, after a year or so, because of overloading or overuse. While a pair of new Apollo 10.02-20 tyres that are used for buses and trucks would cost anything between Rs 18,000 and Rs 19,000, the old tyres can be resoled for Rs 3,500 to Rs 5,500," said Sk Ali, who runs a tyre shop on NH6.
The Aged Tyre Retreading Shop at Nibra is one such unit that does resoling. "We take old tyres from our customers, check the casing. If the casing is in good shape, then we agree to retread it. We first scrape off the old, worn-out tread, then buffer it. The new tread is then fixed on the old casing with the help of rubber compounds and then heat cured," said Sahab Ali who works at the shop. Such retreaded tyres come with a warranty of one year. "These resoled tyres easily work for 6-7 months if not for a year depending on the load and use," said Sahab.
However, such resoled tyres raise safety issues as a spate of accidents involving school buses and pool cars using resoled tyres have caused concern. "Resoled tyres generally lack the grip of a brand new tyre. Often during braking, such retreaded tyres fail to grip the road surface leading to accidents," said a salesman of an Ashok Leyland dealership on the highway.
Besides, an official of the Howrah Regional Transport Office said: "Tyre resoling is illegal in Howrah. We do not allow any resoling of tyres." But the business thrives in Howrah, along the National Highway and the police do nothing about it. In fact, with most of the big tyre companies selling new treads, making soling of tyres illegal is a tough task.
The Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 does not contain anything on resoled tyres as such, leaving it to officials to interpret what is safe or unsafe. A traffic police officer in Lalbazar said vehicles were free to use a resoled tyre as long as the condition of "the unit as a whole" was good. "A worn-out surface can be given a new strip of rubber grips but the overall structure must be strong. Most buses make do with patchwork on the tyres, which is unsafe and, therefore, illegal," he explained.
This was echoed by a technical officer at Public Vehicles Department, Beltala. "The Motor Vehicles Act is an old act which does not say anything about resoling because in those times resoling was not done. But we are going to soon act against such resoling of tyres. We cannot allow any such retreading, particularly with school buses," said the official.
However, Rule 94 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 does say: "a tyre shall not be deemed to be of good and sound condition if (i) any of the fabric of its casing is exposed by wear of the tread or by any unvulcanised cut or abrasion in any of its parts or (ii) it shows signs of incipient failure by local deformation or swelling or (iii) it has been patched or repaired by an outsider gaiter or patch other than than a vulcanised repair".
In the recently launched Chief Minister's Safe Drive, Save Life campaign, in the checklist of don'ts, it is advised not to use "risky resoled tyres".
While retreading of tyres of heavy commercial vehicles is commonplace, passenger vehicles or even light commercial vehicles like Tata Pick-ups or Ace generally do not go in for resoling. "Tyres wear off very easily for heavy commercial vehicles because of loading and also use. Tyres for lighter vehicles last a little longer. Besides, with the market now flush with new Chinese tyres that are cheap, many of these vehicles opt for new tyres than resoled tyres," said a salesman of SS Tyres at Bamundanga.
