1.5 mn vehicles to go off road

Around 800,00 taxies and 700,000 trucks will go off the roads in Karnataka from Saturday as the transporters have decided to go ahead with their indefinite strike to protest against the state government's move to make speed governors mandatory in all public transport vehicles.

The transport strike may affect the IT-BPO industry and agricultural commodities business.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, the Bangalore Tourist and Taxi Owners Associaton and the Federation of Karnataka State Lorry Owners and Agents Association said the strike was inevitable as the government failed to respond to their demands.

"Speed governors will only affect our daily operations and will not serve any purpose. We want the government to tell that to the High Court, but the government is reluctant," truckers association president G R Shanmugappa said.

The High Court, had recently, come down heavily on the state government for not making speed governors mandatory and had set June 30 as the deadline for compliance.

Shanmugappa, however, countered: "The transport department officials have not briefed the High Court on the problems at the ground-level. There are only three companies that sell speed governors and their manufacturing capacity is 5,000 pieces per year. But there are 700,000 trucks in the state and these companies will not be able to meet the demand before June 30. The truckers will have to pay Rs 1,250 crore to these companies as the selling price of each speed governor is Rs 18,000-20,000. We cannot afford to raise such a huge amount.''

This apart, about 1.2 million trucks from other states pass through Karnataka every year.

"Making speed governors compulsory only in Karnataka will lead to confusion and corruption," he alleged.

Taxi operators association representative K S Thantry said vehicles attached to IT-BPO industry will also participate in the strike.