Keonjhar truck owners withdraw railroko agitation

"We have called off the agitation after the mines owners in presence of the district administration assured to despatch about 50 per cent of their mineral through truck," Vice-president of the Truck Owners Association, Keonjhar, Asish Kumar Chakrobarty told PTI.

The truck owners were agitating on the railway tracks since four days demanding a share on trasnportaion of mineral. "We were opposed to total mineral trasnportation by train. Though the state government had assured to allow trucks to trasnport certain amount of mineral, the mines owners were not ready for this," he said.

The state government had earlier announced that it would prefer trasnportation of mineral through train as per the recommensdation of the Shah Commission of Inquiry probing into the illegal mining scam.

The truck owners, on the other hand alleged that about one lakh people become jobless with the government preferring to trasnport mineral through trians. "There are about 10,000 trucks engaged in the mineral transportaion. After the ban, we become jobless," said one of the members of the association.

The truck owners association of Kenojhar, Barbil and Joda had participated in the railroko agitation leading to loss of revenue to the tune of Rs 8 crore for the Indian Railway.