There are going to be some tough days ahead. The decision of the All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC) — representing some 40 lakh transporters in the business of conveying all manner of goods all over country — to go on an indefinite strike will almost certainly have a crippling effect on the economy at a crucial period just before the festive season kicks in. The question then arises as to whether — given this formidable challenge — the UPA government should keel over and give in to their demand that the 10 per cent service tax on services provided by transport booking agents, imposed in this budget, be withdrawn.The answer is a simple and emphatic “No”. The reasons for such a stance are not far to seek and they go beyond the serious concern, often voiced in these columns, that giving in to the truckers now could well encourage other lobbies to tread a similar misguided path. Not only is the present strike unwarranted, it is based on a fiddle. Notice that tax is to be imposed on transport booking agents. So why should transporters take it upon themselves to protest the move? Possibly because of the close nexus that exists between the two entities. Truckers depend on booking agents to get their cargo. Now booking agents are a slippery lot who have steadfastly refused to get themselves registered. Experts in the transportation sector have often argued that the estimated 1.1 lakh goods booking agents need to be brought under the scanner and their functioning regularised if this sector has to be reformed. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s proposal to include them in the tax net would in fact help to engender accountability and transparency in their operations and that, possibly, is their real grouse.The AIMTC is, of course, a past master at pressurising governments through strikes. In April last year, it brought truck movement in the country to a halt over an assortment of demands but discovered that public opinion was not behind it. It should have imbibed a lesson that the All India Cable TV Forum was forced to learn earlier this week. It has to withdraw its nationwide strike in the face of public outrage. The AIMTC’s spokespersons — even as they gloat over the fact that the strike will cost the country Rs 15,000 crore a day — claim that truckers are doing “yeoman service”. We have no quarrel with this. Truckers have indeed become the lifeline of the nation’s economy and have had to face genuine irritants like being milked at tollgates. But this is one more reason why transporters should welcome the direction in which tax reform is going. The proposed introduction of a state VAT, for instance, would remove octroi and ease the burden of negotiating with toughies at check posts. Truckers, like other sectors, must learn to reform and move with the times. The benefits of doing so are inestimable.
