Trucker strike may jack up milk, fish prices

KOLKATA: Bad news for fish and egg lovers. Prices of these and a few other items are likely to shoot up with no fresh supplies reaching West Bengal from Monday.
Vegetables prices, however, are not expected to hit the roof as local supplies are still on. However, they would follow suit in the next couple of days.
Sources said with no trucks being allowed to pass Bihar on Sunday — the second day of the indefinite strike — trucks which had left for West Bengal carrying fresh supplies on August 17 and 18 have been left stranded at various places.Nearly, 25,000 trucks reach West Bengal daily and several of these head for the biggest wholesale markets at Posta, Howrah fish market and Patipukur.
However, loading and unloading at Kolkata ports has not been grossly affected.
But Truck Owners Association of Bengal fear things would change for the worse in a day or to. With the booking agencies under the aegis of Calcutta Goods Transport Association joining the strike, loading and unloading across the state remained paralysed.
Though the Centre has made it clear that the 10 per cent service charge is not on the freight carriers but on booking agents, truck owners are not convinced.
They said if it was imposed, the booking agents would never agree to it and insist on ferrying less. "The additional service burden obviously would fall on to the consumers," president of Truck Owners Association of the Bengal, Joydeb Ghosh, said.
The 10-point charter of demands includes withdrawal of service tax on transport companies, abolition of toll tax on national highways and strict guidelines for insurance companies.
It also includes withdrawal of notification issued by the Bengal government to scrap and condemn old commercial vehicles and withdrawal of notification asking for compulsory registration of all transport companies in West Bengal.
Transport minister Subhas Chakraborty, who is not in town, is likely to a return on Monday to hold a meeting with the representatives of the truck-owners'' associations. He has talked to some of the association representatives over the phone on Sunday.
Calcutta Goods Transport Association general secretary Raja Roy defended the strike.