Ministry sets up war room

The surface transport ministry to ensure smooth supply of essential goods and services.

With truckers showing no signs of calling off their proposed strike from tomorrow, the surface transport ministry has set up a central control room to ensure that there is no disruption in the supply of essential goods and services.

The ministry has also advised states to set up similar facilities to curb instances where truckers not participating in the strike are stopped from plying on the roads.

The surface transport ministry is gearing up to take immediate action, in co-operation with states, in case any illegal incident came to its notice. The situation will be monitored at the highest level by Union Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi.

Truckers all over the country are going on strike from tomorrow morning against the 10 per cent service tax announced in the 2004-05 Budget.

Meanwhile, the government claimed that a section of truckers had a rethink and the All-India Confederation of Goods Vehicle Owners' Association had withdrawn from the strike.

But the All-India Transporters and Truckers' United Front, the umbrella organisation of truckers' unions that has called the strike, said it represented only a small faction of the striking truckers.

The finance ministry too swung into action in order to diffuse the situation and said the strike was unwarranted as the government proposed to impose the tax not on truck owners or operators but on booking agents.

"In fact, the finance minister had categorically mentioned that the tax would only be on transport agents and there was no intention to levy service tax on truck owners or operators," the ministry said in a statement.

The statement added that the government would set up a committee comprising representatives of the transport industry and would also take steps to address procedural problems.

Bombay Goods Transport Association President Mahendra Arya said, "We have decided to go-ahead with the strike after we had given a one-month deadline to the government on July 20. The government did not hold any discussions with us in this period."