Truckers strike to be called off as road ministry addresses grievances

Truckers are likely to call off their week-long strike on Friday as the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has assured to set up a committee to look into their grievances. 

According to a senior road ministry official, transporters' body All India Motor Transport Congress and the road ministry would soon issue a joint statement regarding the same. Transporter union representatives met the central government officials on Friday.

The transporters’ strike across the country had sent prices soaring in the south and western regions though north India saw normal cargo handling. Delivery of online retail companies like Amazon besides traditional retailers were impacted.

Truck operators' demands included the closure of toll plazas across the country, reduction in fuel prices and uniform national pricing with quarterly revision, among other things.

S P Singh, convenor, Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training, a counter-lobby group to transporters, had claimed it was not a strike and can at best be called “a disruption”. “There are 75 trunk routes and 50 lakh trucks in the country, they are all functioning. No school buses or chartered buses have joined the strike," he said.

In the western region, while prices jumped by 50-60 per cent in the wholesale mandi at Vashi near Mumbai, retailers sold them at double their prevailing price on July 20, the first day of the strike.