With the truckers’ strike in Keonjhar and Sundargarh districts entering the third day on Wednesday, the State Transport Minister said the Government would take a call on the dispute over fixation of truck freight rate soon.
“The Transport Commissioner has already submitted a report and a freight rate would be fixed soon,” Transport Minister Ramesh Majhi said.
Notably, the truck and tipper operators in Sundargarh and Keonjhar districts have launched the strike over freight rate dispute among vehicle operators and transporters of various sponge iron industries and mines paralysing mineral transport in all the iron ore-bearing areas in the State.
Around 30,000 trucks and tippers in Sundargarh and Keonjhar have gone off the roads in protest against the Government’s proposed move to fix a ceiling on transport cost and award of transportation contracts through an e-tendering process.
As many as a dozen truckers’ associations in Sundargarh and four in Keonjhar have joined the agitation, sources said.
The strike has hit iron ore dispatches by about 2,00,000 tonne per day, which it is causing a revenue loss of Rs 12 crore a day to the State exchequer by way of royalty, the sources added.