Talks on truckers strike fail

Talks between the striking truck operators and the finance ministry on the levy of service tax on freight booking agents, remained inconclusive today, despite two rounds of meetings in the day.

Coming out of the meeting, the general secretary of the All India Motor Transport Congress, JM Saxena said the three-day old indefinite strike called by them would continue.

He said the two rounds of meeting with the team of officials from the indirect tax department led by Revenue Secretary Vineeta Rai could not resolve the issue.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram held a late night meeting with his tax officials on possible alternative proposals to resolve the impasse.

The ministry is keen to find out a solution quickly, as Intelligence Bureau reports say that 70 per cent of the goods transport across the country has been affected by the strike, and there are also reports of hoarding being resorted to by traders.

For the ministry, grappling with a soaring inflation rate, which has touched 7.96 per cent in the week ending on August 7, the options have become limited.

Sources said while there might not be any roll back of the 10 per cent service tax levied on the sector, talks were currently stuck on the issue of whether the freight transport agencies could be spared the hassle of collecting the duty from the consignor or the consignee.

The agencies have said they will have to incur additional cost in maintaining the accounts for the service tax, which is not acceptable to them. However, the government officials said the proposal put forth by the truckers were unreasonable.

Dhanendra Kumar, secretary, the ministry of roads and highways, who also attended today's meeting said, his ministry and the finance ministry were working closely to find a solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, as a temporary relief, the All India Transporters and Truckers United Front have announced that the transport of essential commodities would be kept out of the ambit of the strike for two more days. This is the fourth strike called by the road transport sector, in the past seven years.

In today's second round of meeting, there was a long intermission for the ministry officials to brief the finance minister. But there was no breakthrough. The officials, however, are hopeful that an amicable solution could be arrived at within the next couple of days.

The ministry has also thanked all those association of truck owners and operators, who have not joined the strike.