Truckers146; strike begins, Baalu holds meet

Truckers refused to call off their nationwide strike on Wednesday even after meetings with the Ministry of Shipping...

Truckers refused to call off their nationwide strike on Wednesday even after meetings with the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport 038; Highways and an appeal made by Minister T R Baalu. While the truckers have been demanding a scrapping of service tax on diesel and a uniform policy on speed governors, the issue where the dialogue became stuck was the high toll tax imposed on goods vehicles. The ministry is already in talks with the Department of Revenue and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to resolve the other issues raised by the truckers.

Truckers have been demanding that toll tax should not be collected in perpetuity and should be done away with once the cost of the project is recovered. They have also demanded that the 50 per cent increase in toll tax imposed from February 1, 2008, should be revoked. While ministry officials have offered to reopen and examine the committee report on toll tax instituted in 2003 under a National Highways Authority of India NHAI official, truckers are not convinced.

Meanwhile, T R Baalu on Wednesday met the representatives of the All India Motor Transport Congress AIMTC and the All India Transport Workers8217; Association AITWA to resolve the issue.

On the problems being faced by the truckers due to multiple toll barriers within a district, the minister directed the concerned officers to explore the possibility of designing future packages for road concessions in such a way that the entire district could be covered in one package. Regarding illegal toll collection, the minister assured that strict action would be taken against offenders with the help of the concerned state governments.

Baalu informed them that the Department of Road Transport has already requested the Departments of Revenue and Highways to look into the issue of levying service tax on goods transport agencies and assured them that a clarification is expected shortly from the Department of Revenue.

On the ad valorem duty on diesel and the non-availability of normal diesel, the Minister said that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has been asked to take care of the issues. The Ministry has assured that they would be issuing an advisory to the oil PSUs to provide normal diesel as per the requirement of the users, he said. The Minister stated that the Government is fully aware of all the problems of the truckers and meetings have been held at the highest levels with concerned Ministries to sort out the issues.

The Speed Governors issue meanwhile is sub judice in some states. Baalu, however, assured that all aspects of this issue would be discussed in a meeting to be convened shortly with the state transport ministers and after their concurrence, the powers could be restored to the Central Government.