Supply hit, price rise in essentials goods as truckers' strike enters second day in Bengaluru
BENGALURU: Inedfinite strike by truckers entered its second day on Tuesday, gradually hitting the supply of essential commodities. Also, prices of produce like onions have increased by Rs 1 per kg in the wholesale market owing to the strike.
Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) market at Bengaluru’s Yeshwanthpur, which earlier got nearly 300 truckloads of onions from different parts of the state on a daily basis, received only 190 trucks on Tuesday.
“While 56,738 onion bags arrived on April 15, it dropped to 38,669 on April 16. If the numbers still go down in the coming days, the stock in the market will last only for a maximum of three days,” said B Ravishankar, secretary of the Bangalore Potato Onion Merchant Association. He said that due to the cut in supply, the rate of onions in the wholesale markets witnessed a jump of Rs 1 per kg.
Federation of Karnataka State Lorry Owners’ and Agents’ Association (FKSLOA), who are leading the protest, said the strike will continue, and they have extended invitations to lorry associations across Karnataka and India for a meeting on Wednesday to discuss ways to intensify the strike. “Over 90% of the truck and goods vehicle operations have stopped. This will hit the supply of essentials and other goods, and people will start feeling the heat gradually.
Our intention is not to inconvenience people but to get the government to think about the plight of the truck operators and roll back the diesel price hike and address our other demands,” FKSLOA President GR Shanmugappa told The New Indian Express.
When asked about a few trucks still operating as usual in markets in Bengaluru and across Karnataka, Shanmugappa said it was because of two main reasons — one is that truckers who loaded goods before the strike should deliver them at their destinations, and the other reason is that some associations are luring truckers to operate so that the strike fails.