aurangabad mahendra kumar shukla a jhansibased truck driver never thought he will have to travel empty stomach despite his pockets being full of money while carrying goods from jhansi to aurangabad on wednesday and thursday he experienced the ordeal when as many as 10 dhaba owners refused to give him food as he had only rs 500 and rs 1000 currency notes to offershukla could not eat breakfast or have tea on thursday morning when all the dhabas he visited on the way refused to accept the invalid notes i realised the gravity of the ongoing situation on my way i filled fuel on twothree locations but the outlet operators did not give me notes of smaller denominations shukla saidhe somehow managed to reach jadhavwadi market in the city of thursday where he got a chance to take meal only after meeting isa khan one of his acquaintances and a wholesalerkhan also exchanged five currency notes of rs 500 with shukla so that he could returned to jhansi without facing any financial problemshukla represents a big lot of truck drivers who are still facing hardship due to the governments decision moreover there are other drivers who are not willing to go to long distance destinations as their companies have been failing to provide them loose moneyfayyaz khan president of aurangabad goods transport association told toi that more than 40 of the trucks are waiting outside the city limits for the situation to normalise we have about 200 trucks in aurangabad that ply on long routes every day the drivers need rs 2500030000 each to meet all the onroute expenses but looking at the current scenario we are not able to give them the required money in smaller denominations because of which all the transporters are incurring heavy losses he saidkhan said cash crunch has negatively impacted the industry though the government has waived off toll fees across the country the truckers are facing a lot of hardships ever since the government decided to scrap rs 500 and rs 1000 notes the industry as a whole is bearing its brunt he said adding that loading and unloading of goods is also not happening in many places