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Goods worth several crores pile up due to lorry strike
As many as 4.5 lakh trucks were off the roads in Tamil Nadu since Friday morning as part of a nationwide indefinite strike called by truckers to press their demands to reduce fuel price and for uniform national pricing with quarterly revision, transparency and reduction in third-party insurance premium, besides a charter of other demands.
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
C Dhanaraj, secretary, State Lorry Owners’ Federation, said, “Due to the strike, the state government will lose about Rs 100 crore a day in revenue, while the truck operators would face a loss of about Rs 3 crore to Rs 4 crore,” Dhanaraj told the media.
Trucks ferrying essential commodities, however, have been exempted from the strike, he said.
As talks with the government remained inconclusive till Thursday night, the truckers under umbrella body AIMTC have gone on a nationwide indefinite strike.
Incidentally, many lorry booking agencies had stopped taking orders a few days ago in Tamil Nadu.
In Coimbatore, more than 2,500 lorries stayed off the road. “Vegetables, industrial spares and other goods valued over 500 crores, usually transported to neighbouring Kerala and Karnataka have stagnated in the district,” said Kaliaperumal, president of Coimbatore District Lorry Owners Association.
In Tirupur, around 8000 lorries took part in the strike causing a trade loss of over 150 crores per day. In Namakkal district, a major hub for egg exports, about 2.5 crore eggs worth Rs 10 crores have been stranded on a single day on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Lorry Owners Federation did not participate in the strike. Its state general secretary Murugan Venkatachalam told media that the decision was taken as past strikes “have not yielded much results.”
“Further, demands like reduction in toll fees is not practical as the system is in vogue for the past 20 years,” he said, adding, the strike would not benefit the sector.
Members of the federation met state chief minister K Palaniswami on Friday and presented a memorandum of demands, including holding regular meetings to sort out issues concerning the industry, he said.
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