Vijayawada: The transporters’ strike will be further intensified, as the Lorry Owners’ Association has decided to stop fuel tanker services from Tuesday.
This is a repercussion of the failure of talks conducted with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) on Monday.
The Lorry Owners’ Associations of South India have been striking for the past five days in protest against the increase in third party insurance premium and late payment challans.
The IRDAI invited transport operators to conduct talks on Monday, but the talks ended without a breakthrough.
The IRDAI proposed that a committee be formed, with the participation of transport operators, to revisit the third party insurance slabs.
The transport operators agreed to the proposal and asked for the notification to be held in abeyance, with immediate effect. The IRDAI did not agree to this proposal and the talks failed as both parties held their ground.
Y.V. Eswar Rao, president of the Andhra Pradesh Lorry Owners’ Association, said that they would not withdraw their strike until the issues were resolved.
“We are intensifying the strike by stopping to run fuel tankers from Tuesday,” he said. He added that the North Indian associations had announced that they would also join the strike from April 8 onwards, if the demands were not met.
Mr Rao alleged that the police were harassing and threatening transport operators.
“Though many of the trucks are parked in private places, some of the long-distance trucks have remained on the highways. The police are threatening the drivers, asking them to remove the vehicles, even though they are parked in vacant lands and they do not cause any problems to the traffic. We appeal to all drivers, to avoid parking their vehicles on highways,” he said.
