TIRUCHY: With fuel price hitting new highs every day, more people are switching to cycles and other modes of transport. According to traffic police, there has been a marked reduction in the number of motor vehicles on roads ever since fuel prices started heading north, resulting in smooth flow of traffic.
Health care experts opine that the price rise could be a blessing in disguise, as more people had opted to cycle or walk instead of using vehicles for short distances. M Raja, a resident of the city said,” The spike in fuel price has a huge impact on my finances, as I spend a major portion of my salary on fuel. With price likely to touch `80/litre soon, I would rather use a bicycle.”
Even as consumer organisations appeal to the Union government to revise prices once in a fortnight, economists warn that continuous price hike could have a cascading effect on other sectors. J Stanley, HoD Economics department, St Joseph’s College. said, “Fuel being an essential commodity, hiking price on a
daily basis may bring upon severe pressure on all sectors.
Bringing petroleum products under GST will help rein in price hike, but the Union government is reluctant to do it. Assuming it is done, petro products will fall in the 5 to 18 per cent GST slab.”
M K Kamalakannan, president of the Tiruchy Gandhi Market Wholesalers Welfare Association, said, “Due to the agrarian distress in the delta districts, we have to being in vegetable, grocery and fruit loads from fr off districts. With diesel price rising on a daily basis, transportation cost is also continuously raising which will result in increase in the price of the products. ”
S Muralidaran, of Tiruchirapalli Tourist Vans and Cars Operators Welfare Association said the price rise has forced marginal players out of the business, and those who are in the business are seeing sharp dip in profit.