An estimated 90 lakh trucks and around 50 lakh buses, tempos and tourist vehicles went off the roads from wee hours on Friday in support of an indefinite agitation called by the All India Motor Congress to press for its various demands, including reduction in diesel prices.
The goods and passenger transportation was badly affected across the country, following the indefinite agitation that began minutes after Thursday midnight.
Goods were neither picked up nor delivered from manufacturing to consumer centres, while cargo transport from airports, seaports and railway yards ground to a halt. The movement of people in private buses and tourist vehicles was affected, while even school-buses were not operated in several places.
“There was an excellent response to the strike call. Economic activities like movement of goods and people were virtually paralysed. However, essential supplies, in Maharashtra and rest of India were spared from the strike call,” an office bearer of the Bombay Goods Transport Association (BGTA) Abhishek Gupta said. Mumbai accounts for more than 5 lakh trucks and 8000-odd buses, while there are 14 lakh trucks, 40,000 buses and 60,000 tempos and tourist vehicles in Maharashtra. These vehicles do not include government-owned ones.
According to the All Indian Transporters’ Welfare Association (AITWA), the main demands of the protesting unions include: reduction in prices of diesel by bringing it under goods & services tax (GST), six-monthly revision of fuel prices instead of the existing daily fluctuations and abolition of Toll Tax at all road toll posts in the country.
The other grievances and demands of the striking unions are the high insurance premium, reduction in third-party premium and the need for exempting insurance premium from GST.