Representatives of various lorry transport unions held a meeting at the Port Area here on Friday and decided to intensify their agitation in view of the lack of response to their demands from the government.
As many as 12,000 of the 15,000 lorries in the district went off the road from Friday morning in response to the nation-wide indefinite strike call given by the All India Motor Congress in protest against the indifference of the government towards their demands.
The 3,000 lorries, which were exempted from the strike, include oil tankers, milk tankers, trucks carrying vegetables and drugs, according to P. Lakshminarayana, president, and P. Venkataraju, secretary, of the Visakhapatnam Lorry Operators Welfare Association.
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Demands
The main demands of the lorry operators are: reduction of the prices of petrol and diesel, withdrawal of the hike in the premium on third party insurance and solving the problems with regard to GST and e-way bills.
Meanwhile, the CITU has extended support to the lorry strike. CITU city general secretary M. Jaggu Naidu, secretary P. Pydiraju, Port Transport Union president B. Jagan, Auto Union city president P. Raj Kumar went to the Visakha Lorry Operators Welfare Association and announced their support to the strike.
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Mr. Jaggu Naidu said prices of petrol and diesel were going up day by day. He said while the actual price of petrol was ₹26 a litre, the Centre and State governments were levying taxes and making it around ₹ 54. Had the price of petrol and diesel brought under the purview of GST, they would have come down. Toll gate charges were being levied even after expiry of the lease period.