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Lorries to go on strike from 20th July
Posted on: 16/Jul/2018 2:59:42 PM
The lorry owners have declared an indefinite strike from 20th July protesting against the price increase of diesel.
In this situation, the Unions belonging to the Land Transport System have also announced to go on strike on 7th August protesting the Motor Vehicle Act.
The All India Motor Transport Congress has declared country-wide strike from 20th July pressing on various demands including that the price of diesel should be fixed once in 3 months.
For this proposal, the booking of lorries has been stopped from yesterday (Sunday, 15th July). In this regard, the Secretary of the State Lorry Owners’ Union, Dhanraj explained that the strike would be conducted as announced on 20th July. Review and consultative meeting are being conducted throughout the state for this purpose.
In the meeting scheduled to be conducted today (Monday, 16th July) at Sankagiri, the President of the All India Motor Transport Congress, Mittal, is participating.
In this situation, the booking of lorries to carry goods to the northern states has been stopped.
With this, the risk of items such as coconut, turmeric, jaggery, soap, soap powder, fire-crackers, textile, iron/steel, sago, and root-flour getting stuck and stagnated. In this situation, the central land transport unions.associations have also declared to go on strike from 7th August.
In this regard, CITU General Secretary, Arumuga Nayinar, explained that the central government is set to pass the new Motor Vehicles Act. If this new Act is passed, all the routine procedural work in the RTO offices will be under the private sector.
This will render a situation where the vehicles would be repaired by the original manufacturer before taking the F. C. (Fitness Certificate). Further, the spares manufacture by the approved set of suppliers only has to be fitted. This will greatly affect the small-scale segment where the candidates who have completed ITI (Industrial Training Institute) and start setting up their own micro/mini enterprises manufacturing the spares at a lesser price. Thus, this move will adversely affect the very life-line of micro/mini-industry sector people.
Further, in the bus service sector, the private agencies will gain domination and the government bus services will be adversely affected. Hence, as a protest against this proposal, a strike has been announced on All-India-basis on 7th August.
Naturally, on the strike day, the government transport system will be acutely affected. The labour unions of the spare parts manufacturers of lorry/truck, the associated workshops, and spares manufacturing segment will all participate in this strike. So, the entire land transport system and the associated industry will be acutely affected.
The executive committee member of the All India Motor Congress, Chennakesavan, informed that the lorry strike is scheduled to start at 6.00 AM on 20th July.
In this, around 68 Lakh vehicles at All India level and 4.50 Lakh vehicles in the state of Tamil Nadu will participate.
In case the strike starts, Rs, 10000 crores worth of goods on All India basis and Rs. 3000 Crores of goods in the state of Tamil Nadu will remain stagnated. The lorry owners in n Tamil Nadu will stand to lose the daily rent of Rs.6 Crores while more than 25 Lakh workers will lose their jobs.
We expect that the central government will call us for discussions. For this purpose, 30 administrators of the Unions will be camping at Delhi.
The state president of the Tamil Nadu Lorry Booking Agents’ Federation, Rajavadivel, informed that in support of the lorry strike, the booking of lorries to take goods for the northern states has been stopped. Due to this, on a single day in the state of Tamil Nadu, 10000 lorries bound for North India have been stopped and goods worth several thousands of Crores have got stuck and stagnated. The lorry booking for transportation within the state of Tamil Nadu will be stopped from 18th July.
