90 Lakh Truckers Begin Chakka Jam Against GST

Over 90 lakh truckers will participate in a two-day nation-wide Chakka Jam from Monday to protest issues ranging from “disruptive” impact of the Goods and Services Tax to the “extortion” at RTO barriers in states.

We are going on a nationwide Chakka Jam today and tomorrow. Negotiations with the government did not yield any results as they did not agree to our demands. The truckers will suffer a loss of Rs 2,000 crore. We are compelled to suffer this loss," said Sabharwal, who is also a member in the Road Safety Council of the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways.

Sabharwal said small-time truck drivers have been making "frantic calls to the association since morning."

"Our means of protest is to stop our own vehicles and suffer losses. Small truck drivers and people



associated with the job cycle have also been rattled, but we will soon go an indefinite strike if the government turns a blind eye to our demands," an AIMTC member told

The truckers have also demanded that since diesel, along with toll, accounts for more than 70% of the cost of operations for a trucker, "diesel prices must be slashed and be brought under GST to create a uniformity in pricing”.

One of the other key demands of AIMTC is that a special investigation team having their representation at the state level be constituted to probe into and address issues of corruption with ITOs, CTOs, RTOs.

The AIMTC has sought that "challans must be prohibited" if there is no electronically verifiable proof by the official concerned to validate whether he or she actually belongs to the Road Transport Office.