The deadlock between striking transport operators and the government intensified on Wednesday with around 1,500 truckers depositing their permits to the state governments and vehicles to the financiers in protest.
Interestingly, amid all the chaos that the now three-day old strike has caused across the country, affecting exports and commodity prices, union transport minister TR Baalu is stationed in Chennai to attend a foundation stone laying ceremony for a four-lane elevated road from Chennai to Maduravoyal Thursday. To break the impasse the truckers sought the support of CPM leader Prakash Karat and BJP President Rajnath Singh.
The road transporters have gone on indefinite nationwide strike demanding a reduction in diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre, reduction in tyre prices, and reduction in national permit fees from Rs 5,000 to Rs 1,500.
?There is no change in our stand against the striking road transport bodies. The government will not yield to their demands,” said a top official from the ministry of road transport and highways, adding that states and union territories have been asked to maintain law and order and ensure flow of essential commodities.
The worst impact of strike was in Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan were hundreds of trucks waited on the highways for movement.
?The surrender of permits as well as the vehicles, which started today, will continue for the next two to three days. By the time, around 20,000 vehicles will be surrendered. With this, no truck will enter or leave the premises of the Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar,” said Kultaran Singh, president, Truck Owners? Welfare Society Singh.
Meanwhile, prices of onion and potatoes inched further up in national capital territory of Delhi because of low supplies. In the city?s largest agriculture market, Azadpur Mandi, just around 60 trucks of potatoes arrived on Wednesday, almost 30 less than Tuesday. Price of superior quality potatoes was quoted at Rs 310 per 80 kg Wednesday, up from Rs 240-Rs 250 per 80 kg on Tuesday.
?There is hardly in supplies from Punjab as truck operators there have stopped loading the goods,” said Dinesh Kumar, a leading commission agent in the mandi. Supplies of onion, another major commodity that comes into the national capital entirely from outside also went down because of the strike.
Also, key spot markets for commodities like sugar, potato and maize remained closed because of the strike. Main maize trading centre in Nizamabad and turmeric trading centre in Erode, Andhra Pradesh, chana trading centre in Delhi, potato in Kolkata and sugar in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh remained shut because of the stir.
Textiles supplies to the Erode market was also hit because of the agitation with goods worth as much Rs 20 crore piled up with merchants.
?We expected good sale these days, as the Pongal festival is celebrated next week. But due to non-arrival of textiles from other areas, there is absolutely no sales in the market,” a trader in Erode said.
Speaking on the effect of the strike on exports A Sakthivel, president Federation of Indian Exports Organization said, ?Everyday, goods worth about Rs 2,000 crore to 2,500 crore are transported across India and this will get hit because of the strike.
More than thousands of containers have piled up at the container terminals and more are likely to join the queue thus hampering exports and supply chain.”
FIEO, in a communication to T R Baalu, said that exporters are worried that any dislocation in the shipments would spell cancellation of export orders and if the strike is not resolved quickly, exporters will incur huge losses. As per the World Bank estimates each day delay in shipment adds to 0.5% of freight on board cost to exporters. Exporters, who are already under pressure from their global buyers to reduce prices, will come under additional cost stress if they were to transport goods by air.